Blogs coming in a week or so

We've not been blogging recently because we can't get an internet connection for our laptop. Plus, the we suspect that surges in the local power supply have knocked out the batteries in our camera and laptop.
Once we get to Singapore, we'll have wireless internet in our room and we'll add some updates there. Check back on 8th November and we may have added some updates.

Mysore Palace Lights -- 2nd October

Night fell as we arrived at Mysore Palace. The crowds were making their way back from across the city to the palace grounds to see the lights be turned on at 7pm. Above is a photo of some of the dancers from the procession earlier in the day making their way to the palace. As dusk fell, the anticipation built and it was the perfect time get some photos.
The photo below shows the front of the palace which is where the kings and maharajahs would have sat and watched processions and celebrations over the years. It's quite a grand building, and the best bit is yet to come!


Suddenly, and just after 7pm, the lights came on, and it's quite the spectacle. Not only the front of the palace, but all the wall surrounding the gardens and all the temples and gates were lit up.
The first of the photos below was taken looking away from the palace at the main gate, and the one below it is the front of the palace taken from an angle.



We'd wanted to see this the last time we were in Mysore, but it was not to be. We were very glad that we got to see it this time around.
The Christmas lights of Highfields will never seem as spectacular after today! 

The Mysore Elephant Parade -- 2nd October

On the way down from Chamundi Hill, there's a Bull carved from a single piece of rock. There's a few of these around, but this one was pretty good... not that Daisy and I know too much as we stayed in the car with Raj whilst Leanne and Jyohti ran up to see it.


We dropped out of the hill into Mysore and into the throng. There were people everywhere, all tying to get to the best vantage point to see the elephant parade. The photo above shows coaches packed with people inside and on top. We felt very lucky to be in an airconditioned vehicle, even if Jyohti was always complaining that she could walk quicker.

Raj took us to a large roundabout close to the palace where we would get a good vantage point. We quickly realised that whilst there was no agression in the crowd, the sheer volume of people meant that crowding, pushing and uncontrolled surges were not uncommon. The police were there waving their sticks at people's heads, trying to get them to sit down but after getting caught in a couple of (quite terrifying) surges, we knew that we needed to find an alternative place to sit. In amongst the crowds, some enterprising folk had parked their small horse-drawn carts and were charging for people to it in and on them. We gladly paid 1,000 rupees (about £12) for the five of us (Leanne, Daisy, Jyothi, Raj and me) to take a seat. From the roof of the cart we were not only protected from the surging crowd, but were also able to see over the heads of the crowd. The carts were fairly rickety affairs and occasionally the horse would shift a little causing the cart to pitch backwards or forwards, but it was quite safe. As time wore on, the crowds deepened and people were going to great lengths to find a good vantage point. The photo below is of one of the trees to our right.


Most of the trees, signposts, radio masts, and so on were filled with men. After some time, the town rocked to the sound of cannon and the parade officially began! The elephants came at the start and at the end with about 20-30 floats in between. The elephants were exactly what you would imagine to see in India. Draped with bright fabrics and bejeweled spectactularly, they were the highlight of the day.


About half way through the parade, the heavens opened. I ducked down into the cart with Daisy, but everybody else sat up on the roof watching the procession. Raj made a rain hat out of a handkerchief and Leanne and Jyothi sheltered themselves somehow. The rain was warm and brief and it took us no time at all to dry out.
At one point, one of the trees nearby decided that it had too many people in its branches and promptly collapsed. Everybody in the vicinity ran to see what had happened. We stayed perched on our cart, but despite the mass of people running to the scene of the incident, there seemed to be no casualties.

Well, after all the floats and elephants had passed we made our way back to the car and headed towards the palace to see the last sight on our tour...
 

I am not a number

The next part of the story of our trip to Mysore and the posts about Grandma Alison's visit to Bangalore will be along shortly. In the meantime here's some Breaking News!


Today was my last day with Dell. I joined Dell on 11th September 2000 and finished on Friday 13th October 2006. I came to India to help kick-start a team of web developers and I'm pleased to say that it was a success. It was such a success that they called short our time here... although we're really not complaining too much.
I couldn't have asked to have worked with a better group of people for the past few months. They have been generous, courteous, hardworking and diligent. The world needs more people like them. They also bought a fabulous cake to say thanks for the time I've spent with them. It's hard to see how big it was from the photos above, but I'd guess at it being about 40cm or 16" along each edge. It had the sweetest pineapple flavour imaginable and had I not had a rather healthy lunch beforehand, I'm sure I'd have managed to finish my second slice.


They'd also bought a few gifts for us. They presented me with a lovely painting of a marigold... or perhaps it was a lilly... or a rose? I'm clueless when it comes to flowers (except the Daisy of course!) but it's a nice painting that Leanne's already found a place for in our house. All we have to do now is find a house! They also bought Daisy the ideal gift. Daisy loves her handbag and she loves dogs. The team gifted her with a dog in a bag and you can see her playing with it in the photo below.


She had the attention of everyone in the office as she walked around the desks. She also carried her new toy dog with her everywhere she went. We were very proud that she showed how much she loved her toy in front of the people who gave it to her.

So, that's it. If you've not got around to asking me for a cheap Dell system, then it's too late now. We're unemployed and come Wednesday we'll be homeless too. On the other hand, we've no debts whatsoever and no bosses telling us what to do. There's no going back now. Exciting times lie ahead! 

Chamundi Hill, Mysore (Desara festival 2nd of October)

Monday the 2nd of October was a public holiday so we seized the opportunity for another day in Mysore.
For some reason we both like Mysore. It seems a more relaxed pace even though there is probably over a million people living there and there is the ever constant people, noise, traffic adn pollution that is India. This trip we took Jyothi with us as she had never been to Mysore. She was soooo excited and honestly didn't stop talking for the whole three hour journey! She and Raj seemed to get on marvellously and then two of them talked together and Chris Daisy and I sat in the back and absorbed the sights and sounds. Our first stop in Mysore was Chamundi Hill (that was of course after the mandatory stop at the coffee dafe day enroute!) This is a large hill(1062m) that overlooks the city. Pilgrims are supposed to climb the 1000 + steps but we took the easy 'Raj' route in our car. Poor Jyothi had said that she got travel sick and we saw evidence of this after the winding roads of the ascent. She was so funny as she would be chatting and then suddenly step aside, be sick, drink some water adn then continue her conversation with out skippinng a beat. We were both terribly impressed! There is a temple at the top of the hill and various market stalls and hawkers of every imagination! We circumnavigated the temple and found ourselve the centre of attention. We were admiring the view when some nice people aked if they could ahve their photos taken with us. We obliged and soon found ourselves surrounded by clicking cameras and calls to 'look this way'. We must have had over twenty different people taking our photos! After a while we did hav eto move on as there was becoming quite the gathering around us. Not much further on we started to see monkeys in the trees. I am not sure if you remember but Chris and I were having a competion to see who saw the first ten monkeys. It was a furious finish as we were all calling out our monkey sightings (I think Jyothi saw ten first) and Chris pipped me right at the final post. This meant that I had to cook dinner. We wandered in amoungst the throng and sellers and took photograph and looked, watched, smells and were reviled. jyothi narrowly escaped death by almost being crushed under me and I slipped in a huge cow poo and lost my footing. Luckily I didn't go down and there were lots of offeres to help clean my thong and bottom of my trousers. This of course was offered after all and sundry rolled around with laughter!! The view from the top was lovely and worth the trip. Mysore palace, our next destination, is just to the left of centre in the above photo.
 

And the Winner is...

This was going to be a tough decision. We were sure that one of the jokes submitted in our competition had it in the bag, but suddenly! ...with moments to spare! ...we had a last minute submission that became the runaway winner.

Here it is in its full glory:

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, (and hedoesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the kerb.
"Excuse me, Your Holiness," says the driver, "Would you please take your seat so we can leave?"
"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive atthe Vatican, and I'd really like to drive today."
"I'm sorry but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?" protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that morning.
"There might be something extra in it for you," says the Pope.
Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel.
The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 mph.
"Please slow down, Your Holiness!!!" pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens.
"Oh, dear God, I'm gonna lose my license," moans the driver.
The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio.
"I need to talk to the Chief," he says to the dispatcher.
The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five.
"So bust him," says the Chief.
"I don't think we want to do that, he's really important," said the cop.
The Chief exclaimed, "All the more reason!"
"No, I mean really important," said the cop.
The Chief then asked, "Who ya got there, the Mayor?"
Cop: "Bigger."
Chief: "Governor?"
Cop: "Bigger."
"Well," said the Chief, "Who is it?"
Cop: "I think it's God!"
Chief: "What makes you think it's God?"
Cop: "He's got the Pope as a chauffeur!!"

Many congratulations to Thomas Holdstock for posting this one. It's all the more amazing given he's only 10 months old, so very well done to Thomas. We hope you enjoy the Elephant!

Now, we couldn't let everybody else go home empty handed and so we're sending a small gift to everyone who entered. The photo below shows the elephant being modelled against the backdrop of the cheapest Bollywood music and movies that Bangalore has to offer. I've little idea what they are because the titles aren't written in English, but I hope they bring as much joy to their recipients as their jokes brought to us!


Thank you everybody and keep posted as we head into the final month of our Indian adventure! 

Puja my Ride!

The Ayudha Puja is a form of worship that's practiced on the first day of Dasara, a festival that has huge importance in Southern India, and in the town of Mysore in particular.
For the Ayudha Puja, many people worship their cars, bikes and other 'tools' by performing a puja ritual. Whilst the ritual's all very interesting, the best bit is that you car gets decorated with flowers, garlands and banana leaves!


Raj Puja'd our car on Sunday and brought it around specially to show us. It was one of the best we saw all weekend and he was rightly proud of his creation.
The flowers lasted for a couple of days, after which Raj cleaned the car inside and out, leaving only the purple garland and small, decorative lime/chilli pendant.


Daisy was also quite impressed by what she saw! You can see other people's photos on Flikr here, here and here.


...and with our car rightly puja'd we were ready to head off to the epicentre of the Dasara festival: the city of Mysore, which regular readers will know is a 3 hour drive from Bangalore. Leanne will tell all in our next blog entry!