Its been a funny old day. The weather is crap and clouds obscure the sun I know is there... But there was brilliant sunshine today - beautiful, pure, Swiss sunshine. And I hope those shafts of light continue to illuminate my life.

That's all for today...no pictures, no wit. But this is today.

India 3

The horn is more important than the brakes.

A few beers on Friday night didn't set me up too well for the 06.00 start for Mysore on Saturday.

The intention of the driver, Raghu, (pictured looking bemused at having to chase across the paddy fields, through coconut glades and around market stalls at Mach 2 on the way to the tourist trap that is Mysore) was that I visit the palace in Mysore. Other pictures can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamroscoe/sets/72157602230328682

I was far more interested in catching the local colour on the way, than tramping round some gold-encrusted palace in bare feet having had my camera confiscated at the entrance gate. But Raghu insisted. So after a 5.5 hour journey (because of photo stops) - instead of a 3 hour journey from Bangalore - I did tramp around the palace.

But this blog is more of a road movie than a tourism briefing...

En route we stopped at Restaurant Kamat in Lokaruchia (same as the one we had eaten lunch at earlier in the week) and had the same meal - 'Idli' (pronounced to rhyme with Diddly and spelt with an 'i' at the end and not a 'y') which is mashed rice, steamed in banana leaves, served on banana leaves with a selection of curry, chutney and yogurt on the side. The curry was a sambar and contains onions, turmeric, chili power and 'nine or ten other ingredients'.

The yogurt consisted of coconut and peanuts mashed together, chili and cardamom leaves. So, this was a meal for two, including mineral water, coffee and a persistent fly that danced on most of the food I was about to put into my mouth.

Worryingly, there was a cow-shed within 5 meters of the restaurant, so I only hope the fly had the decency to dance on my food as a main course, prior to wallowing in the cowshit round the corner for dessert. Cost of the meal: 87 rupees - less than a quid, about 2 francs.

Back on the road, I asked Raghu about the constant sounding of horns on the road - coupled with a total lack of aggression on the part of the honkers and honkees. He said it was easy to explain: "If you don't use your horn a lot, you have to slow down." Brakes are important, but the horn is indispensable. Work that one out...

There were women working in paddy fields and a couple of labourers having lunch of rice out of newspaper leaning up against their ancient bicycles. I was so pleased that they didn't mind me taking their photos as they were a couple of real characters. Raghu interpreted for us.

Then, as I was about to leave, the extortion began. I ended up paying them 100 rupees for them being my models and Raghu said that was maybe a little on the high side (about 2.5 francs - or a quid to the Brits). He said they had told him that now they had enough money to go for a drink. Good, I thought - they can have a couple of pints of Kingfisher down the pub after work, shoot the breeze and relax for a while. I was pleased to have been able to help them enjoy a little light relief. Raghu then went on to tell me that I really needed to be briefed about what 'having a drink' meant in certain echelons of Indian society.

Apparently these guys will go and buy 180ml each of highly distilled sugarcane-based alcohol and neck the lot in about 5 minutes. No chat, no quiet cigarette and a leaf through the Times of India - just hardcore drinking to get drunk. I wonder if they are distantly related to the Finns?

Raghu explained that some of the cane alcohol distilled in the countryside was dangerous stuff. Not infrequently a number of the men in a village get blind-drunk. Literally. Sometimes the impurities in the alcohol cause permanent blindness - some even die.

Then on to a market near the Tipu Sultan's summer palace at Srirangapattana. Tipu Sultan suffered a defeat at the hands of the British (surprise, surprise) in the late 1700's. Apparently the East India Company wanted to get a grip of the agricultural and mineral resources, so they teamed up with the British Army, under one Colonel Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington), beat the crap out of the local army and paved the way for another bout of enlightened and sensitive colonisation (nicking gold, the Sultan's clothes, furniture and weapons - most of which are in safe-keeping in British museums).

Funny how the army fought so the commercial enterprises could succeed then - unlike now, when firms like Blackwater do the fighting for the armed forces in Iraq.

But I suspect the market was probably open for business as the battle for the palace and surroundings was in full-swing. A market guy selling cuts from a recently-slaughtered goat really thought he had a chance to sell me a leg. But when i made it clear that I could not possibly buy it - he went on to offer me the goat's absolute culinary peak - it's head, which lay on the floor with a slightly surprised expression on its face. This was less difficult to refuse.

The market sold mainly fresh fruit and veg, literally tons of onions, spices like turmeric, flower blooms and blocks of sugar. And just outside the market a guy was collecting silkworm cocoons from sundry blokes on bicycles who turned up with the produce neatly packed in patterned silk sheets.

Leaving the town, I noticed a refreshingly frank and direct sign on a scruffy-looking roadside doctor's surgery - "Treatment for Piles and Fistulas". One wonders why this speciality has sprung up here. With lowest winter temperatures of 18 degrees C, I cannot imagine that anyone finds it necessary to sit for long periods on radiators.

On the way back to the hotel there was a bus in a field - somehow it had veered off the main highway. This is so surprising because most buses have at least 60% bald tyres - so why were there not more buses veering off the road and into the local countryside? Just approaching Bangalore at 18.00 hours, I noticed a huge increase in lorry traffic - the rule there is that freight travels at night - starting at 6pm sharp. And the lorries are worse than the buses - at least half of them have no tail lights and nearly all their tyres are bald. And the stats are bad - 80,000 killed, 1.2 million injured and 300,000 permanently disabled annually on roads in the country.

As was explained to me - the horn is more important than the brakes because otherwise you would have to slow down. Seems some poor buggers get to slow down on a more permanent basis than they bargained for. Shame.