Leaving Coffe Land
We woke early on Supramania’s birthday. The king of the snakes was a revered local deity, and Avin said we should go with him. After a hearty Karnatakan breakfast we bundled into Avin’s Jeep and drove,a gain at breakneck speed, to the temple.

The crowds had already started arriving a little after sunset. Traders lined the track leading to the temple, Ice cream trucks, candy floss, balloons, cheap, tacky, plastic toys, jewellry, trinkets, charms were standard, as were torches and mobile phone covers.
The Holy Cart had been wheeled out of its stable and was being decorated with brightly coloured flags and paint in preparation for the festival, a band of saxophonists and drummers belted out melodies from under a covered arch as lines of Indians walked barefoot into the cool , stone temple to make Pooja, leaving offereings of money, food or jewellry, blessing themselves with holy Water before walking dowm to the lake below to make rounds of the fertility tree and puddle in the cool , still waters of the lake.
“Also Holy” I asked Avin
“It is water, all water in India is Holy”
Avin intrduced us to more of his friends, of which there were many, his village was a small one , and it seemed like everyone knoew each other.
“These are my good friends from England, he told them all, showing us off proudly like you would a new car.
We returned to Garribidou. Coffee time was over and the road beconed once more. Avin and his family had been the ultimate hosts and we hadn’t wanted for anything. The coffee had been flowing and we’d relly enjoyed our time at the Estate, but time was becoming an enemy an we had to bow to its constraints, so we packed our bags, loaded up the mule, took a family portrait and headed out, back through Belur, continuing southwards to the city of Mysore.

Again, Phoebe’s riding style belied her mood. She was obviously distracted, not riding badly, but not pulling up beside me to show me her teethy grin, her head was still, so I knew she wasn’t singing to herself. She sat behind slow moving trucks and busses that she would normally be overtaking.
She followed me as I pulled off the road and parked under some shady trees.
“I’m really not looking forward to being in a big, stinky city, especially after that’ she said, referring to the peace and beauty of where Avin’s estate.
“It’s just an overnighter’I assured her, we’ll be in and out, maybe we can get some wifi and catch up with home”
We guzzled some water and chugged back down the road to Mysore, the district Capital, home to over 2.5million Indians.

We stoped off en route to visit a brightly coloured Temple we’d seen from the road. We’d been crossing a bridge over a wide, blue lake, and had seen a multitude of Indians going down the steps to splash themselves with water and had decided to investigate.
The Temple was being decorated for he forthcoming celebrations for Shiva’s birthday. Here, the locals told us, their religion was a local spin on Hinduism. All around the temple vendors and food stalls were preparing for a busy couple of days. “Thousands of visitors will come’ they told us, ‘ in three days all this will be gone’one of the vendors said , gesturing towards the mountains of rice piled up in sacks behind his stall.
We wondered around the temlpe and down the steps to the water. Young men showed off, diving from the highest point of the lake walls into the cool waters below and then swimming out to a part-submerged edifice 50 or 60 metres from the steps.
Again, we attracted more attendition than we deserved or desired, as crowds of locals formed a circle around us asking to take pictures with us.
“Its only fair’ I said to Phoebe,’we want to take their pictures, just as we want to snap them on our cameras.’
We obliged the first thirty or so amatuer photographers, pointing their mobile phones at us and shouting gleefully ‘smile please’, before making our excuses and taking a walk along the water’s edge.
Time was against us again, we wanted to make it to Mysore with plenty of time to fnd ourselves a room and catch the sunset. We waved goodbye to the traders, and in a cloud of dust, we rejoined the highway towards Mysore.

The city came upon us quite suddenly, we rode through a couple of small satelite towns, and then we were in the heart of the city. We followed signposts towards Mysore Palace, and soon came across an old colonial building, with a huge “Guest House” sign. We missed the main entrance, and decided to make a short cut, up the pavement, and into the main gate, to the amusement and surprise of passing Tuk Tuk drivers. The once magnificent building was crumbling, and once we found the reception, a small shack in the middle of a green, shady courtyard, we were told there were no rooms. “Full” was all the recptionist could say
“Do you kow any other guest houses?” we asked
“Full”
“But are there any other in the city”
“Full”
“Do you know any hotels?’
“Full”
We cranked our bikes up again and rode towards the centre of the city. We came to a street with half a dozen hotels and guest houses and split up.
We met again 10 minutes later.
‘I’ve found one for 500 rupees, the rest are all full’
“I’ve found one for 1500’
We went to look at the room Phoebe had found first. We were led up two flights of stairs to the end of a long, dark, double corridor, with a dozend doors on either side.
This place looked like a prison. The walls were dark with grime, the room itself was also much like a cell. No window, a squatty potty and a bucket and tap for a ‘bath’. The sheets were stained and full of holes and the whole place stank like it had overdosed on dettol.
I did’nt need to say anything to Phoebe, she could see in my face that I wasn’t keen, but I knew that 1500 rps was out of her budget.
“You know what, let me treat you to a night of luxury.’ The 1500 rp room was a ‘luxury size room’ with the added bonus of the so far elusive wifi.
We went into the reception, where the grumpy manager called for a boy to come and show us the room.
I was excited about the prospect of hot water, maybe even a bath tub, a comfy seat and a good view of the palace.
Inside, the room ,was dark , dank, and dingy. The bed sagged drastically in the middle, paint was flaking off the walls, and huge ants scurried along the window cill.
“This room is 1500?’ Phoebe asked the boy in disbelief. It wasn’t much better than the last room we’d seen, but three times the price.
“Normaly 800 but now all hotels full so price go up’
We thanked the boy and walked out front to consider our options. We were both too tired to ride any further, too tired to look any longer. It was dark now, and the air had begun to turn chilly. We walked around the block and checked in any guest houses we came across, but as the first receptionist had told us, everything was indeed ‘full’
We were just about to give in and take the prison cell when the security guard from the ‘luxury room’ called us over.
“One place I know” he said, ‘up there’. He pointed to a street that Phoebe had already tried
“We’ve been there, all full’ she said
“My friend hotel here’ he insisted, tugging at his brown security uniform’trust’ he implored.
Phoebe at first protested, saying that she’d checked a half a dozen places and all were full
Again, he insisted, so, with nothing to loose, we followed him up the street.
We entered the reception, and the girl behind the counter gave Phoebe a filthy look.
‘I was here, the room was small, 1600 rupees, and minging. I tried to get the price down, but she wouldn’t budge.’
Phoebe had apparently upset the girl when she’d pointed out a brown stain on the matress, and said, ‘Im not paying 1600 for a shitty bed. And now the girl was totally ignoring us.
I stormed out, my temper fraying, and Phoebe followed. We walked back towards the ‘luxury’ hotel and Phoebe spotted a red neon “Lodging House’ sign that we’d not seen before, tucked down a little side street.
We walked up the narrow, tiles stairs to reception.
‘Do you have room?”
“Just one, checking out just now, you wait?”
“How much”
‘800’ ready soon, you want, you look?
“We’ll look’
Again the receptionist called a young boy in an ill fitting uniform to come sghow us the room.
It was perfect. Small, but clean, a western toilet, and a balcony with a view of the top of Mysore Palace, illuminated with a thousand lights.
“We’ll take it”
“Sure?’ asked the recptionist
“Sure’ we replied.
We retrieved our bikes, drove round and began to upload. The boy in the uniform that would probably fit in about 6 years time appeared and took my bag off my back, and then Phoebe’s. We struggled up the stairs but wouldn’t let us take our bags off him.
We checked in, and a few minutes later the room was ready. Our bags neatly stowed.
I gave the valet/bell boy/dogsbody a 10 ruppe tip and his face lit up. He turned and run back down the stairs to show his boss.
Exhausted, we fell asleep almost as soon as we hit the bed, waking a couple of hours later wit hrumbling stomachs.
We poured water from the bucked over our heads, put on our jackets and headed out to see the palace in full illumination, but the lights had disappeared. We stopped at a street cart for Phoebe’s favourite, Panni Puree” a mix of fried, hollw balls of rice, filled with cereal, peas and masala spice mix. To this mix, we would add the panni, a spiced, watery gravy.
We were told that we had missed the illuminations. The palace has thaousands of lights, and they are switched on for Sunday evening and festival days, but only from 7;30pm to 8;15pm.
“It costs so much money to turn on the lights, so they are only on for most short time” We were told by one of the more Anglophic diners.
Gutted. We’d seen postcards of the placace lit up, and it had looked amazing, but we’d slept through it.
We finished dinner, posed for more photos with the diners,and went back to the hotel.
The peace of our room was shattered once again by the arrival of another coach loads of Indians. 8 crammed into the double room next to us,and more took the rooms above us. Their loud voices echoed through the hallways. I groaned, and rolled over, wishing I had packed my earplugs again.
Eventually the noise dissappated, either that or we simply fell asleep, too exhausted to be kept awake by anything.
We spent the next morning visiting the sights of Mysore. First, Mysore Palace. Out side the main entrance, a series of garishly decorated carts, each dedicated to one deity or another, the Snake God, Sopermania, Shiva, and a pleathota of others, each manner by a priest, handing out blessings to all who would make an offering. The carts were lined up in front og f the gates, From where I stood it looked like the starting line for some king of Holy Whacky races.

The highlight of our Palace visit was getting Blessed by an Elephant.
I’d watched in disbelief as locals would offer money to the elephant. Holding out 10 or 20 rupee notes, the elephant would collect the offerings with its truck, and then pass the money back to the Mahout sat atop of the beast. The Elephant would then gently touch the top of the head of whomever had made the offereing.
I stood nervouly in front of the huge beast, and help out my note. The Elephant reached out his trunk to my hand, took the money, and passed it to the Mahout. I lowered my head and felt the breath of the elephant on my face before the gentle touch on my head of the elephants trunk.
Elated, we finished our tour of the palace and headed out towards the city centre. As soon as we left the grounds, we were surrounded by vendors selling all sorts of trinkets, wooden toys and plastic tack. A Tuk Tuk driver named Mohammed follwed us around for about 5 minutes, offering us a city tour of the best sights, ‘Number 1 driver in all Mysore’ he proclaimed.
Not taking no for an answer, we admired his perseverance. Rate negotiated-200 rupees for a two hour tour including Bidi Making, Local Market, insence factory and essencial oil shop- we climbed into the Tuk Tuk.
Our first stop was lunch, no Panni Puree to be found, Mohammed to us to a Botty Puree shop instead. Much the same as Panni Puree, but with different shaped puffs filled with a slightly spicier mix of cereals, corn and peas. The menu was interesting, items such as Cock with Ice Cream, Lady Finger fry and Masala Thums Up tickled us.

The Bidi Factory was nothing more than a small dark, dusty room where three old men expertly stuffed, rolled and sealed over 1000 Beedies per day. We watched as their fingers worked at a ridicolous speed stuffing a tobacco mix into a leaf, rolling and sealing then tieying off with a small piece of string.

The men chatted happily and smiled, never stopping their work as they posed for pictures for us and joked to each other.

Our next stop was an incense ‘factory’.
The factory was another small house, where an elderly lady sat crossed legged at the base of a staircase, carefully diping bamboo sticks into a paste before rolling them in sandlawood and jasmine, and whatever other sticks she had to make. There were dozens of varieties being made here, suposedly all single-or double-handedly by this woman, 3,000 sticks per day, for the meagre sum of 150 rupees.

Again, she seemed happy, rolling away, singing and smiling. The owner, a young man named Ali talked us through the preparation of the sticks and showed us into a back room where a plaethera of bottles conained essential oils, collected from flowers, shrubs and plants all over from Indai. Some of these, he told us, were sent to Italy to make perumes for the bigItalian brands, some were used for homeopathy, some went into Ayurverdic massage oils.

He pubbed half a dozen fragrances on each of our arms, telling us their uses-for sleeplessness, for stomach pain, migraine, fertility, pretty much any ailment one could think of.

Tiring of the heat, and itching to get out of the city and back on the road, we asked our Tuk Tuk driver to take us back to our hotel.
“Most important if you please silk factory very very good for you, 5 minutes we go, we see, we come back , ok with you?’

Our pleas to return went unheeded, and once again Mohammed got his way. His persistence is what had got us in his Tuk Tuk to start with, and we were way too hot and bothered to argue with him.

As is the way with rickshaw drivers and cabbies all over the world, the last visit was purely a commission based sales drive.

The ‘factory’ in this instance, was a large , flourescent lit shop> Mohammed was most likely paid for each tourist he brought here-so long as they bought something.

Inside was an Alladdin’s cave of handycrafts, silk scarves, fridge magnets, Kashmir puloversa ans souvenirs for the Western traveller. We ran round the shop quickly, we had neither the time nor inclination nor even the space for any purchases, so with the salesman yabbering in our ear about fabulous gifts for family at home, ‘they will surely enjoy greatly their gifts of india from you, even if it is not of your liking”, we beatb ab hasty retreat from the shop, pulled Mohammed out of his shady street food stall and rode like the clappers back to our hotel.

With no sign of last night’s security/porter/room service/bellboy, we hefted our luggage down the narrow stairway , loaded up and sweated our way of of the sweltering city.