After a relaxing stay with Colonel Roy we made our way to
the airport for the next leg of our adventure.
Trivandrum airport is yet another
brand new, fabulous state of the art airport. Our Air India flight was slightly delayed ,
but as luck would have it we found the “beer parlour” and had two glasses of
very expensive beer. The aircraft still managed to pick up time and arrive as
per schedule., We landed, went through
arrivals and had picked up our baggage within 15 minutes. This is not at all unusual. We have been gobsmacked at the slick
operations and Bangalore airport was yet another amazing structure, with
efficient service, making Heathrow &
Gatwick look decidedly shoddy.
Pic is of Colonel Roys fabulous ordchid collection
A driver came to
collect us and take us to our next accommodation he was waiting for us outside arrivals and we
started back towards the city, through beautifully laid out roadsides along the
motorway. The traffic built up rapidly,
it was 4.15 pm so rush hour was upon us.
An auto rickshaw rammed into the side of the taxi, and of course, no bad
language occurred, no one swapped insurances, and nothing was said! It took 1 ½
hours to get there, however the drive delivered us to the wrong address, but
after a couple of phone calls it was all put right.
The "digs" we are top left
We are staying in a serviced apartment which is pretty good, but we are sharing it with three other
families of 18 people – just kidding. No we have our own room and ensuite and the
use of a lounge & kitchen, not that we shall use it. The manager cooks us
breakfast and his wife is doing the laundry – thank heavens, the wriggling bag
tried to make a bolt for it! Unfortunately
the air con was not working. The manager
said someone would come and fix it, but guess what, no one showed.
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| If I move my fingers the steam comes out! |
We were starving by this time so decided to go out for
dinner. On the way we bought another mosquito repellent and as my torch had
failed I asked the shop assistant for some new batteries. He took my torch apart discarded the old
batteries, gave the torch a quick service and charged me 30p for the lot! We found a little family restaurant, but had
serious second thoughts, so just had a beer.
We seem to be in an area well known for Biryani there were shops selling
it everywhere. We went into the best
looking one of the lot and it looked quite clean. Himself always one to try the local delicacy
had a mutton biryani and I had a prawn.
Well to say it was hot was an understatement. There was steam coming out of my ears, my
eyes were steaming and we were in bits laughing. We could only manage half each and the waiter
was upset and disappointed that we hadn’t made much headway through it. We had three large glasses of water each, but
that didn’t kill the burning. Himself
ordered us some icecream and it more or less did the trick. The waiter cleared up all our mess and we
were just about to leave after paying the bill when he ran behind us with a bag
full of fiery left-overs. Himself said he had a plan for it, he never
told me what it was, needless to say it didn’t make it back to the digs.
Tuesday!
Nice sleep, good breaky and were off! Whistle stop tour of the town cente. Picked up and auto rickshaw to the Hindu temple and Tipu Sultans summer Palace, followed by a visit to yet another market. We employed a guide who got rid of the rickshaw driver, he parked on double yellows and promptly got fined by the traffic police! 100 rupee fine, half what we paid him for the 1 hour drive.
Hindu temple next door to Sultans Summer Palace
This is where the Sultan & Sultana held court, there were loads of Indians taking photos. Please excuse top, I've run out of clothes and gone local in respect of local custom!
We are going to Mysore to see the Maharajahs Palace tomorrow, it has spectacular gardens which apparently should be one of the seven wonders of the world, and also to see the palace lit up with 100,000 lights. As it is 100 miles each way we have decided to stay overnight at the Jade Gardens, so no blog tomorrow, be back on Thursday/Friday with some belting pictures!
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| Fruit, lovely fruit! |
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| Pineapple sellers |
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| spices, chilli,turmeric etc made into conical displays |
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