The flip out

I've been very bad at writing these last few days so there's a lot to say now!

Hampi was such a beautiful place to visit. Its an area of boulders and rocks with ancient temples and bazaars built scattered through the countryside. The whole area is not really walkable so the first day we arrived we wandered up a hill with a temple on top and and just admired the view all around. Its hard to describe the beauty of a place, especially when surrounded by centuries of history and spirituality.

The next day we were proper tourists and went with the tourist departments guide on a bike ride through the old ruins. That was an adventure. he really knew his stuff and gave us so much detailed information that I don't remember any of it!

There were about 10 of us on his tour and when we arrived he walked us over to where we picked up our bikes for the morning. These bikes were about 20 years old! All steel frames with only 1 gear and extremely suspect brakes! It was nice, though, to get on a bike again and cycle around. Cycling up a hill with only one gear is no simple task but a great accomplishment when you do get to the top! The tour started with us having to surmount this massive hill and as we eventually got to the top the guide appeared alongside us on his scooter. Not a chance he was going to cycle! Only in india!

Towards the end of the tour, as we were furthest from our starting point and about to turn around, one of the group got a puncture and because we're in india the guide does not bring spares or any way of fixing the tyre. Instead he tells he poor guy that he has to climb onto the back of the bike, sit backwards and carry his bike til we got back to hampi. To make matters worse, another of the group had his shoe break and had been riding on the back of the bike for most of the tour so now there were 3 people and a bicycle on the scooter travelling along dirt roads with no helmets and the guy holding the bike couldn't even hold onto the scooter! Only in india!

Yesterday we arrived in mysore after a very long 12 hour train ride! We thought it would be rather easy finding a place to stay but emily and lloyd have a very tight budget so we had a long morning of searching for a place that fit our budget and was clean. What a mission! Either the place was filthy or there was only a bucket shower and indian toilet or it was too expensive.

In the end we found a place that seemed passable and were prepared to stay there. However, things did not work out quite so well. We first asked if we could drop our things in the room and then come down to settle everything and the guy said no so I went to the counter and was told how much was owed and asked to fill out the register. meanwhile lloyd and emily were sorting through their bags to get what they needed. I put my share of the money on the counter and started filling in my details. While I was doing this he kept saying 950, 950 which was the total money owed so I explained I put down how much I was paying and emily and lloyd would be over to pay their share. To which he said 950, 950. Now don't get me wrong, he did speak english, he'd just explained the room situation to us in english but once again I explained that emily and lloyd would pay for the double, I was just paying for the single. He just got more insistent, tapping the ledger for me to fill out while at the same time telling me a needed to give him more money. I flipped out, asked him where he thought we'd disappear to with his money, we were staying right upstairs and he just needed to calm down and give us a moment, we'd been on a train for 12 hours at which point emily and lloyd came and high fived me and we walked out. Its not often I get angry but that man made me so angry! I still don't quite know what he thought would happen to his money or where we would disappear to! Eventually we found a reasonably clean hotel with everything we wanted, although its very noisy!

We arrived in mysore on the perfect day, every sunday they light up the place here and it turns into a fairy castle and they let everyone in for free too. It was such a lovely atmosphere, felt a bit like a festival. Mysore is one of the cleanest indian cities I've visited. And for a city, quite a nice place.