Hassan to Mysore

Wednesday November 21: Hassan to Mysore

After another cold bucket shower and sleepless night, I cannot wait to leave Hassan. A faint sense that there might be a God after all is realised by my arriving at a bus station with no signs in English, to be greeted by a bus going to Mysore – which is totally empty. Of course it doesn’t stay that way for long, but I should be grateful to be leaving at all.

My relatively early starts means the journey coincides with school rush hour. Indian school children are impossibly sweet, moreso thanks to their delightful uniforms, all pristine and all of interesting colour combinations. More often than not, the predominant colour is white, which, you’d imagine on the average 6-year-old in a country full of stain opportunities, is a test for any Mum’s packet of Daz. However, I’ve yet to see a child with so much as an untucked shirt; they are all immaculate. On this occasion, they are either walking unaccompanied by adults alongside extremely harzardous traffic, or squeezed into a tiny auto-rickshaw, their excited little faces poking out of the side.

Arriving in Mysore is a real breath of fresh air – quite literally. There are properly paved roads, trees and even some nice-looking houses with 2 storeys and no chunks of plaster missing. My hotel is a palace compared with Hassan; the only problem with posh hotels over here is that their restaurants are completely souless and overpriced so I head out for something a bit more Indian at one of the chepaer places down the road. It’s delightfully gloomy with a cronky fan doing a pointless job. The thali (buffet style plate) here is 50Rs (65p!) for all you can eat, including refills. I am the only Westerner in there until another blonde girl about my age enters wearing some kind ‘I got these when I was in India’ robes, accompanied by 3 Buddhist Monks. I am steadfast in my M&S cottons, insisting that ethnic garb is only really only acceptable if you’re doing a year off and never had a job, not if you’re 33 and working in the unendingly glamourous world of advertising…..

Mysore is famous for its palaces, silks and sandalwood, a lot of which goes into incense. My first wander round the town takes in the huge Devaraja Market; it’s like Waitrose compared to the one in Bangalore. It’s the standard set-up of immaculately run stalls of colourful produce – fruit & veg, pulses, spices, flowers and the local speciality, Sandalwood soap – at eye level. Then on the floor, ankle-deep refuse and teeny weeny, wrinkly old ladies sitting next to a pile of about 4 potatoes which you really think they should eat, rather than try to sell in case they snap in half any minute. A little boy approaches me asking if I want to come and see some incense being made. It’s a sad truth that many shops use young children as touts to attract tourists to their stall. I’ve had this countless times so am quite adept at shooing them away. This one is particularly insistent that he show me how it’s done, and is very sweet so I go with him to his perfume stall, run by his uncle. “Uncle” shows me countless photos of tourists who have visited his stall over the last 40 years (!). He is so friendly that I sit down. Little Aziz, who is 12, then puts a spoonful of sandalwood powder, and a spoonful of ‘gum’ powder, onto a board, which he mixes to for a paste. He then takes a reed-thin piece of bamboo, and rolls the past over it, until just a thin layer remains. An incense stick! Uncle then gets me a cup of tea, and takes the stoppers out of some of the large glass bottles of oils on the stand. Each one is wafted in my direction and given the equivalent designer name. Rosewood oil is ‘Chanel’ – it does smell like no5 – Watermelon is Kenzo, and Green Lotus oil is apparently what they use in the perfume of French designer ‘Janpal Gotey’. I take 3 bottles, not quite making the minimum limited of 10 to qualify for a free wooden box. Uncle then gives me a potted guide to Mysore, what to see, how to get there and most importantly, what not to see. It is meeting people like this that makes these trips, and I am invited to return before I leave, which I most certainly will.