Day 2 - Don't stand there, stand there!

First thing after breakfast we walked into the city to get some information on what to do. We found the very helpful Tourist Information centre, where we picked up a map and a few pointers on what to see. After deciding on a few key sights, we secured the services of what turned out to be the pushiest tuk-tuk driver ever (more on that later)!

First on the list was Tipu Sultan's Palace, quite small (took only 15 minutes or so to go through), but interesting nevertheless. Beside it was a large temple, which we decided we'd also like to see - and this is where the fun with the driver began, as he started telling us where to stand, what to take photos of, what to do, etc. For example, Kathryn was in the middle of a Hindu blessing by the priest when the driver told her to get out because she'd be there an hour. Kathryn did as she was told - and the ceremony finished two minutes later!
The good thing however was that because he followed us around, he paid the little tips and donations required along the way as we had no small notes for change at that point.

Next stop was the Bull Temple, which had a giant bull statue carved out of rock. We followed the locals up to the temple, and as we entered we were both dabbed with red spots in the middle of our forehead by the priest. We were then able to walk around the back of the bull and out the other side. This was all fine, but as we progressed in our travels we did get a few stares from the locals, at least until we cleaned the red spots!

Final stop was Bengaluru Palace, a majestic palace built in the style of Windsor Palace. Quite grand, but we were also the only visitors, which was surprising at it was definitely worth seeing. After our guided tour we were taken back to the middle of town, where we had a tasty late lunch.

We then decided to visit the Lal Bagh botanical gardens, which were quite nice. We strolled through there for a couple of hours, before heading back to our hotel for a shower. We dined at one of Banglore's upmarket restaurants, Ebony, which though nicely positioned, was actually quite disappointing - both food wise and price wise - what's Indian for "rip off"?