Divali

 Today is Divali, and we had plenty planned. First we took an Uber to the Bangalore city palace. The trip advisor comments lead us to believe we’d be in and out quickly as it was apparently underwhelming, but we actually found it interesting to see this heavy Scottish influence over traditional Indian architecture and how they blended it, as best they could when oppressed of course. It was eye opening to see elephant feet turned into foot stools and illustrations of jungle creatures tamed into tiny zoo spaces. But that’s the history, unfortunately.

We then went to 100 foot road to have lunch at a beautiful insta-worthy cafe called The Kind Roastery. They had some cafe favourites but with Indian spices throughout making for a really special treat. We took a walk through the shops and bought a few items before heading back to the hotel for a swim. Later in the afternoon we took a walk to the park, but it was pretty dilapidated and full of mosquitoes so we just turned it into a walk around the neighbourhood.

Before dinner, we had a drink at the bar and then the hotel had arranged for a Diwali dance performance in the lobby. It was amazing to see! Then, we had dinner at the hotel buffet and again experienced amazing spices across all types of curries - fish, chicken, goat, paneer and more! We could have kept eating but left room for the dessert station which had been decorated for Halloween with a brain cake, little ghost cupcakes, and monster teeth macaroons. It was great fun for kids and big adult sized kids alike. Then tonight is Darcy’s turn to go to the speakeasy whilst I’m on bed duty. The silence of night has been replaced with firecrackers going off non stop. Like, literally non stop, and they are LOUD. We’d walked past a kid setting one off in the afternoon and it was deafening, so that’s that for the whole night haha! Ethan doesn’t mind, he is out for the night, and i don’t really mind the strange white noise haha! We had a great Divali in India and are looking forward to many more!