I made friends on a Cosmos coach tour around Italy with Zoe and Karen Starling whose large family I was warmly welcomed into and Melvin is one of this family. His hospitality was wonderful but, after acquiring more beer, a mixture of the sun, walking, lunch and beer
made a two hour kip necessary before Melvin took me to a Bengali restaurant for a memorable meal. The trip back was memorable: metro to within 5 kms of the Airport but
thereafter getting a fair fare to the hotel was impossible and, when I got one at a half decent rate, it became obvious the driver had no idea where he was taking me. I have no sense of direction especially at night and, after a reasonably civil spat, he refused to go any further and demanded that I pay him two thirds of what he agreed. I had to go but he got only a third and I was eventually back at 10.30pm.
SATURDAY 5 NOVEMBER
Up at 5am, I had a Kingfisher flight to Bangalore from Calcutta via Hyderabad which was fine if long. I put up in the Raj Mahal hotel annexe which was fine but the next two mornings, I found dead creatures which had got in during the night and obviously not liked something although they left me alone. I made plans to meet my friend Pooja with whom I would go to Mysore the next day to try to see M.S.Dhoni's adopted tiger, Agasthya. I love tigers, Dhoni is my favourite cricketer and Pooja my best friend in India so it all boded well.
Agasthya was, I'm told, there behind me
Pooja at Mysore Zoo in front of Dhoni's tiger's cage
SUNDAY 6 NOVEMBER
Pooja showed up at 8am and we took a bus to Mysore. The Bangalore traffic is too much, frankly, so it took time but, once there, we thoroughly enjoyed Mysore's zoo. It was warm, we arrived around midday and Agasthya was asleep.
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