Wednesday 29 January

Mysuru – Bengaluru

A much quieter day today than yesterday. And our last scheduled day with Vaishakh. We decided to wear the new shirts that Vaishakh had given us yesterday – they’re lovely and cool.

Matthew did a short run … he’s almost at the end of RED January and he’s really stuck at it, even though finding suitable places to run here in India has been challenging. I’m very proud of him. 

We had breakfast with Stephen and met his lovely cat, Billet-Doux, who seems to be a little lost and confused about the absence of her housemate, Lucie.

Vaishakh had originally proposed that we leave at 05.00 – but his next passengers were delayed, so we didn’t need to leave until 08.00. The drive to Bengaluru was uneventful and we arrived at the Radisson at 11:30.

Sad to be saying farewell to Vaishakh, his advice and help was far above and beyond what we could have ever imagined. He went off to collect his laundry and see his mum before meeting his next passengers.

A couple of days ago Matthew was engrossed on his phone (as is often the case, I think). When I asked him what he was doing, he became quite cagey and told me to mind my own business! Turns out he’d found a vegan bakery in Bengaluru and they could deliver to our hotel. We’d not found any deserts other than fruit that were vegan so far in India, so he ordered a little raspberry and mango cake and it was waiting for us at the Radisson hotel. The cake was in a little cardboard box and as we were checking in one of the reception staff brought it over to us, saying “Here is your cake.” Obviously I had no idea what was going on and I imagined that maybe this something that they do here … bring people cake when they check in! So I told them no thank you! She looked a bit confused and Matthew had to insist that it was ok – and took the box from her. Up in our room (the exact same one we stayed in last time we were here!) he explained what he’d done. We had some tea and cake – very civilised!

We’re taking our first overnight train tomorrow and Matthew has signed up to a train food ordering app … but we’re not confident that there’ll be much available that we could eat – I think it depends on what’s close to the  intermediate stations. Vaishakh told us about the Fresh Pick store in the 1MG – Lido Mall, which is very near our hotel, that he thought would have vegan food, so we went to check that out. In the mall Matthew was a little distracted by the Gap store – he used to work for Gap in Bristol in his student days, but Gap pulled out of the UK several years ago – so it was a curious trip down memory lane for him. There was also an M&S in the mall, too – we had a look around there, too. It’s very good value here – but I’m trying to dissuade Matthew from buying stuff that we’ll have to carry for the rest of the holiday. We saw another likely vegan store opposite, Nature’s Basket Artisan Pantry  – they had loads of nice vegan stuff, too, and a nice restaurant on the top floor with plenty of vegan options – I went for more dosa, Matthew didn’t want dosa three days in a row, so he went for the pasta arrabbiata – not very Indian!