Mysore

We took another great goverment run (more expensive but no chickens in the aisle or babies in your lap) bus from ooty to mysore, we've been seriously lucky in the bus timings so far, one has been ready to go as we arrive at the station by rickshaw and both rickshaw drivers and bus conductors have been extremely helpful in helping us locate the correct vehicle.

Mysore is a great city, steeped in royal tradition with its picture postcard palace and historic market. There's a bourgeois feeling in the air and streets are lined with all manners of retailers selling clothes, jewels and electronic and household goods. The palace was simply stunning, especially when lit up by the 100,000 lightbulbs at night. The market was hectic but thoroughly enjoyable, so much fresh food i cant begin to describe as well as dry paints (for bindi and holi) and clothes for sale. We passes the one meat stall and nearly heaved up my lunch seeing all the flies and accidentally gulping down the putrid air that engulfed the street. I'm happily gonna stick to veg only here.

We had sone amazing food whilst in mysore and thank you to the om shanti restaurant for putting my faith back into south indian food, possibly the best thali of the trip and itll take some beating. 4 poori breads, rice, poppadom, dhal, two veg curries, sambar, chutney, curd and a sweet. All for a ludicrous 60 rupees and all of it tasted wonderful. We also tucked into some top streetfood; samosas done chat style, broken up with two sauces, mutter, mix and a mint and coconut chutney on top. We also had the same sort of thing but dolloped into little fragile puris which were a great light snack, light snack (only a  couple of you will laugh at the repetition of that statement).