Bangalore and Mysore

Perhaps nothing so impresses the first-time visitor to Bangalore as the traffic, and the ubiquitous three-wheeled "motorized rickshaws."

I am about to check out of the excellent Ibis Hotel Bengaluru Hosur Road in Bangalore, India.  I have been staying here for the past six days, but today will head east to Chennai (formerly Madras) on the Bay of Bengal, a half-hour's flight or a six-hour train ride from Bangalore.

Palace of the Maharajah, Mysore

My first days in India have been busy, and gratifying.  I have been visiting an excellent graduate business school here, and have become friends with a number of their faculty.  On Sunday, I was taken as a tourist to Mysore, the seat of the Maharajah of Southern India, where I was able to visit two palaces, that of Tipu Sultan, a great general who held the British Empire at bay for many years, and that of the Maharajah, himself.

Living hieroglyphs, hitched to a cart of sugar cane.