mysore improving

last night zoë and i went to a place for dinner just 500 feet from the hotel. we walked through this sort of concrete tunnel to the inner part of the building where there were all men sitting at the 7 or 8 tables that made the restaurant. everybody was surprised to see us, even the host. the place was pretty filthy, crumbling, and some of the men were spitting on the floor. it was kind of a shit hole. i was slightly uneasy about my decision to go in, even though i consulted with zoë.

the host came over and told us that they only served southern style thali in a tone that was expecting us to get up and leave. we didn't. the chef or waiter or both came out with a stack of about a dozen plates full of thali and began to dispense them around the room. so this is how the "meals ready" restaurants work, you get what you get and that's all they serve.

just so you know what thali is: in general there is a northern and southern style. we're only really familiar with the southern style. the southern style is a big dish that comes with about 7 or 8 cups, a dish of rice, some poori or another bread. in the little cups are:  of curd (which you mix with your rice first thing,) one or two cups of sambar, a cup of rassam, a cup of fried rice, a cup of buttermilk, a cup of chili water thing, maybe some pickle (not like cucumber, but pickled other stuff that is spicy,) and sweet (kind of watery sweet based with lentils.) you mix each cup in one or two at a time with the rice, scoop it up with your hand and eat it. 

well, the thali was awesome, and so far almost 24 hours later has not gotten me sick, (i'm slightly surprised.) it was authentic, spicy, and seemed to be pretty fresh. luckily in india, at least fresh vegetable and fruit-wise, it seems local is still cheapest. thali at any restaurant is a gigantic meal. you eat until you feel so stuffed, but in an hour you're fine or even hungry again. thali, although extremely flavorful, is pretty much all water. it is also awesome how much it varies restaurant to restaurant, not in quality but style.

today zoë and i woke at 7:30 and went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. i ate idli, a favorite of both of ours, and zoë had rava upma. we then went out to find fabindia, getting minorally ripped off by a rickshaw man, one of the worst feelings. but, it was not that negative of a start. from there our day actually improved a lot. i still do not understand the cheating, much of the time the person cheating us has nothing to gain. they also rather lie to us then say "i don't know" much of the time.

fabindia was closed but opened up at 10:30 so we decided to find a cafe while we waited the 45 minutes. we went to pastry world, which was so great. their cakes are just like the birthday cakes you can buy from shaws. i got 2 slices, one was sort of like coffee chocolate cake, and the other was plain cake with green frosting. zoë had a pink cake that she thinks was strawberry.

then we went on a hunt for a bookstore, but were unsuccessful. we were in a different neighborhood than gandhi square, which we liked a lot. we passed many shops that were definitely aimed at indians rather than tourists, and a few interesting temples.

we head back to fabindia, which was open this time. it was really fun store, with about 5 rooms; one was food and chawski, one was furniture, two were clothes for women, and the fifth room was clothes for men. as awesome as it was we did not get anything; zoë and i didn't see any clothes we really wanted.

on the way back we took a rickshaw. we wanted to hunt down a bookstore to get an india lonely planet guide and some tolstoy. he actually turned on the meter, a nice change, because he was not quite sure where we wanted to go, just to the gandhi square area. it was really nice of him. the same journey costed 50 rupees versus 100 rupees this morning. he couldn't find the book store, but he found another rickshaw driver that did.

on the way the rickshaw broke down in the road, which is not uncommon; it would be our second or third time this has happened. each time it happened, including this time, the driver got out and pushed the vehicle to the side of the road. then he pulled out a screw driver and went to the back of the vehicle (we sit over the engine), there was a lot of banging, and then it worked again.

the store was 3 floors of books, and we found a lonely planet guide to all of india just like the one we left at home, whoops! it was 1350 rupees, ouch! the tolstoy book of similar thickness was around 150 rupees, i think lonely planet must have the same price globally. we are still hunting for a used book store to sell a couple books we have finished.

we had some dosas for lunch at another local not so touristy dirty place that was pretty good. we then walked back to our hotel which took about 20 to 30 minutes. reassured that india was not out to get us, we did not spend much time relaxing at the hotel before we headed back out again. we stopped in a cafe to just to have a nice place to check out the lonely planet guide. we tried a few new sweets that only zoë could pronounce the name of; they were really good. i cannot believe we have not had bad food indian food yet. we have had some terrible "chinese food;" not sure why i ordered that now….

we then headed to the palace. mysore has no natural landmark to bring tourists. indians and tourists come here to buy stuff and then leave. there is not much more to do than that, and it is why it can be such a hostel place. the price to enter the palace is 200 rupees for non-indians and 20 rupees for indians. we wanted to wander the gardens in front of the palace and get some pictures without actually going in. along the way we noticed another westerner getting hassled by some guy; she shook him off and i mentioned to her they go extra hard on you here.

she was half surprised to hear an american accent. her name is alexis and she was trying to get into the palace as well. we ended up walking around the entire palace with her trying to find the entrance. along the way we chatted quite a bit. she is from california and is working with a women's empowerment group and writing a book on it. we never found an entrance even into just the garden that you could get through without paying. not caring a whole lot, we left. we got alexis's email, and we might catch up with her later if possible.