Today we visited the palace in Mysore and got the red carpet treatment. We got to go into a few places the general public wasn’t allowed, including a room with crazy weaponry and an adjoining room with stuffed tigers and stools made from elephants’ feet.
When we got outside we got to ride a real live elephant, which was pretty awesome. Six of us fit on it, and we walked around the palace grounds for five or ten minutes. The elephant started kind of going after some Indian people, and they laughed as they scattered out of his path. The funny thing is that we were receiving as much attention as the elephant—people were staring and waving at us. At the time I made the comment, “Look at those things on top of the elephant!”
The same sort of thing happened on the palace grounds. Julia related the story of people coming up and asking her to take a picture. She said that she would be happy to take a picture of them, and they would say that they wanted to take a picture with her.
I used the bathroom near the elephant rides, but when I left there was a woman asking for money. I tried to ignore her as I walked past—this palace has had numerous people trying to sell us stuff or solicit charity, which is always a rough situation. When I got back to the group, someone else was talking about how he was going to use the bathroom but he didn’t because it cost a rupee. I was floored—I cheated this woman out of her rupee because I thought she was a beggar.
Probably the highlight of the day, though, came as a complete surprise. At one point we got off the bus, and there were a bunch of kids across the street. Somebody got out his camera and started snapping pictures, and the kids just went nuts. Soon I got my camera out. The kids would stand in front of you for a picture and then get really excited when you’d show them their image on the screen. At one point, they were so eager to get in the picture that they started pushing each other, and I had to tell them to play nice or I wouldn’t take the picture. All of a sudden, the same boys who had been pushing each other had their arms around one another and were smiling like angels. Kids are funny like that. I took about ten pictures while we were there, and those are by far my favorite pictures I’ve taken so far.
Dinner was at this nice hotel that we were supposed to have stayed at but something got screwed up along the way. When we got there, The Shades, a band of three Indian guys, were playing a Backstreet Boys song. They played a bunch of cheesy music while we ate and talked. One highlight of the night was watching Shinji sleeping on a chair until Jason came and woke him up. Jason tapped Shinji on the shoulder, and Shinji picked his head up, looked around, sprang to his feet, and then walked away with Jason. It looked like a silent movie comedy team. The other highlight was talking with a big group that included Professor Konana. He talked about Desiree always having the same smile on her face, and he mentioned that Infosys has such a strong culture that its people call themselves “Infoceons” (like Americans or Texans). Then he said that maybe if someday Bartley has his own company there will be people who call themselves “Bartleyons”. The name stuck instantly.
The food of the day was actually not at the dinner buffet but at lunch. It was some kind of appetizer that was served on toothpicks (How do you tell the difference between appetizers and entrees in India? toothpick=appetizer; spoon=entree) and was fried vegetables in a nice spicy sauce. It was really good—one of several things on this trip that I’ve helped myself to after everyone else has finished eating.
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