Nandy in a Nutshell

     It was pouring rain an we could see that, outside the windows of our hotel in Mysore. However, we manged to board our cabs without coming into contact with the cold water, thanks to a conveniently placed awning. We thought there would be another one outside our destination, the famous Mysore Palace. Oh, how mistaken we were...

The ride there, in a nice little taxi, revealed many surprising things. For part of it, it seemed as if we were driving through a river, which really made me appreciate the great service storm drains do for our roads. Anyway, we thought, it can't be that bad at the real palace, right?

We got out at the side of the road at an alternative entrance to the palace. Our next task was to get onto the sidewalk, but to do that, we had to cross the aforementioned 6-foot wide muddy river. And I was wearing socks an cotton flats! Needless to say, we got *a little* damp.

That's when our umbrella broke.

That was our situation; half our party under a tree offering meager shade, with a broken umbrella to supplement it, waiting for 3 more of us from a different taxi and getting drenched. That's when a very suspicious-looking man under a large plastic umbrella offered us some shade. Me being me was like "is this safe?" My mom, already wet to the bone, just shoved me over. So now we were sharing an umbrella with a generous but somewhat raggedy man we just met. Thanks!

The other half of our party arrived, bringing us to a total of 6 wet adults and 1 cranky toddler. After scouting the area and deciding there was no hope, we decided to go back. But alas, the Uber app decides not to work. So the 7 of us pile into an auto rickshaw for 3 and ride home.