Mysore and "Make My Trip Impossible".com

Last weekend being a holiday (Ugadi) we decided to make the most of the long weekend and go resort style (Thank-you Infosys) to Mysore. No site seeing, no heritage, no culture...a lazy weekend.

Simon drove down and the roads were relatively empty. When Simon is driving we are all banished to the back seat, so he can concentrate. The boys i-podding, i-padding and i-phoning and me looking out of the window. I don't think I'll ever tire of watching India and the thing I'll miss most when we leave here is the people, all one billion of them!  The crazy incongruity of life here, the 15 people, dressed in their holiday best, squished in and hanging out of a rick, the guy on his old bicycle with a load bigger than him, the mother washing her baby in a bucket on the road side, the truck loaded up with coconuts perilously balanced on top of which a couple of guys perch fast asleep, the herder with his goats, the two motorcyclists driving side by side chatting without a care in the world as buses blare their horns trying to get past, the guy riding pillion water falling out of a bottle as his driver weaves between the traffic not spilling a drop.

We stopped at the halfway point. The first time we drove down here last year there was a solitary Cafe Coffee Day. This has now been joined by KFC - for better or worse a sign of the times! The boys head to KFC, me to Cafe Coffee Day for my favorite cold coffee -which it has to be said is just as good if not better than my Starbucks, tall skinny vanilla! I sit in the shade under the Cafe Coffee Day umbrella which reads "Eat, Sip, Munch, Gossip. Burp - a lot" - now that is a culture difference!!

Once at the Infosys resort - sorry I sometimes forget for the students it's all hard work...."Infosys Corporate University" its time to relax - table tennis,  bowling, tennis, soccer, swimming and the pick and drop bikes to get from one activity to another. I even managed to buy and read a book -true sign of a relaxing break! Though the security getting into the campus is pretty thorough. Adam and his laptop had to be parted for the duration of our stay, probably a good thing - tho I did sense some separation anxiety on his behalf!

Just outside the Infy campus we found the best Tandori chicken and butter naan ever. We had lunch there both days it was soooo good. Seated in our little indian style booths with a cold beer and such delicious food.......

It would have been a weekend of wonderful peace and calm if not for Make my Trip. Having booked our flights, using said booking agent, for next week's school spring break to Rajastan back in January I assumed all was set. Our first trip without a travel agent, everything booked by me! But no - a scheduling change by the airlines. It now appears we fly out of Delhi before we fly in!! MakeMyTrip.com say this is just tough and I have to deal with - not their problem, once the tickets are booked, they get their commission and bale! The airline takes a while to realize that this is in fact a problem. They then suggest I can be wait listed on a flight that leaves Bangalore approximately when the original flight did. This as we don't leave for a week they think is fine, there will miraculously be seats available on this already over-booked flight. In the Indian way all will come right in the end. However I have not been in India long enough to be this laid back. So I insist on other options - the only one presented to me means leaving Bangalore in the middle of the night and then a combination of a few hops and a few layovers arriving in Delhi just in time. I guess that would be the scenic route!!

Numerous phone calls later.....all the effects of my relaxing weekend long faded..we get a very early flight (but at least 6.40am can be described as morning and not middle of the night) and only one layover. However our luggage cannot be checked all the way, and with less than an hour and a half in Delhi, not time to claim and recheck, we will only have hand luggage. So be-warned, photos of Rajasthan will see us in a very sparse wardrobe! and of course no liquids over 100ml so will have to shop up there for toilettres  but at least we don't have time travel backwards to make our connection!!