The trip around Mysuru Palace was extraordinary, such a lovely place with intricate patterns and decorations everywhere (oddly most made in Britain!). What made it even more special was that Vaishakh had used his contacts to get us a tour of some rooms that are not open to the general public.

One was the amazing armoury where the resident historian guided us through the beautiful, but often quite gruesome weapons. Then they took us into the next door trophy room – which we were far less keen on. It was filled from floor to ceiling with the King’s hunting trophies, all stuffed and staring at us from every angle. I couldn’t help think that of all the thousands of visitors in the palace that day, we were probably the two who would least like seeing that room. We both felt a bit sick and very sad to see all these beautiful creatures that had been killed and stuffed just for fun – truly horrible. 

Thankfully we didn’t have to stay long in that room, and we’re back in the armoury where the historian was very intrigued to be told by Vaishakh that we were both vegans (hence not very keen on the murdered animals next door). I think he thought we were some kind of religious sect, but Vaishakh did his best to explain that we just liked animals and didn’t want to see them exploited or treated cruelly by humans. No pictures of these two rooms as they don’t allow it, but here is the door – which was padlocked shut again when we passed it later on our way around the rest of the palace.