On Wednesday, November 4th, we headed back to Bangalore, passing through Srirangapatnam, where Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan ruled a chunk of southern India, in alliance with the French, until the British defeated and killed Tipu in 1799, consolidating their power in the south.
After a four-and-a-half-hour drive, as we approached the restaurant where we were to have our last lunch together as a group, Stalin told us a joke and a story. The joke: a new M.B.A. at a job interview was asked to differentiate "pollution" and "solution." Pollution, he replied, is one politician being drowned in a river. Solution, he continued, is all the politicians being drowned in a river. The story was about his young daughter, who asked him why he had some gray hairs. He replied that every time you're naughty, one of your father's hairs turns gray. "So that's why all of Grandpa's hair is gray!" she said, turning the tables on him.
After lunch, we said goodbye to those who weren't going immediately to the airport, then to one we dropped off at a hotel on the way, then to the remaining two and Stalin at the airport. Indian domestic airlines have a weight limit of 15 kilograms per person for checked bags. We hadn't made it on our flight to Bangalore, but that had been offset by others in our group. We had left some surplus stuff (clothing, sunscreen, insect repellent, snacks) in our room in Mysore, but were holding our breaths when our bags were weighed: they came in just under the limit.
We had a lengthy wait in the new, spotless Bangalore airport, during which I read part of the Ramayana. Our flight back to Kochi was uneventful. The young Indian woman in front of Mary Joy bought a selfie stick for 500 rupees (about $7.50) from the in-flight catalogue and was trying it out with her phone as the plane was descending. Our hotel, the Villa Romantica, sent a car to pick us up. We had chosen this hotel because it was near the airport, had very good reviews in Tripadvisor and seemed less generic than the Marriott. It is a little worn around the edges, the staff's English language skills aren't top-of-the-line and the WiFi reached Mary Joy's phone only at one end of the room and my finicky iPad not at all, but they gave us a good chicken soup and dal with rice, and their hearts seem in the right place. There was a gecko on the bathroom wall, but there are geckos on the walls of my brother's house in Florida. So it was a good enough one-night transition space between the tour and our week more or less on our own in exotic India.
After a four-and-a-half-hour drive, as we approached the restaurant where we were to have our last lunch together as a group, Stalin told us a joke and a story. The joke: a new M.B.A. at a job interview was asked to differentiate "pollution" and "solution." Pollution, he replied, is one politician being drowned in a river. Solution, he continued, is all the politicians being drowned in a river. The story was about his young daughter, who asked him why he had some gray hairs. He replied that every time you're naughty, one of your father's hairs turns gray. "So that's why all of Grandpa's hair is gray!" she said, turning the tables on him.
After lunch, we said goodbye to those who weren't going immediately to the airport, then to one we dropped off at a hotel on the way, then to the remaining two and Stalin at the airport. Indian domestic airlines have a weight limit of 15 kilograms per person for checked bags. We hadn't made it on our flight to Bangalore, but that had been offset by others in our group. We had left some surplus stuff (clothing, sunscreen, insect repellent, snacks) in our room in Mysore, but were holding our breaths when our bags were weighed: they came in just under the limit.
We had a lengthy wait in the new, spotless Bangalore airport, during which I read part of the Ramayana. Our flight back to Kochi was uneventful. The young Indian woman in front of Mary Joy bought a selfie stick for 500 rupees (about $7.50) from the in-flight catalogue and was trying it out with her phone as the plane was descending. Our hotel, the Villa Romantica, sent a car to pick us up. We had chosen this hotel because it was near the airport, had very good reviews in Tripadvisor and seemed less generic than the Marriott. It is a little worn around the edges, the staff's English language skills aren't top-of-the-line and the WiFi reached Mary Joy's phone only at one end of the room and my finicky iPad not at all, but they gave us a good chicken soup and dal with rice, and their hearts seem in the right place. There was a gecko on the bathroom wall, but there are geckos on the walls of my brother's house in Florida. So it was a good enough one-night transition space between the tour and our week more or less on our own in exotic India.
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