By Paul Topping

We are on the road across southern India from Mysore. Two days of temples there was just not enough. We are heading to Bangalore, some 260 miles away.

My travelling partner is my intrepid Bangalore buddy known as Darby. He created one of the most scenic wineries and vineyards in India. He features often in my stories and books. In Mysore, he finds the hidden Garrison Cemetery, where Swiss mercenaries are buried. Having fought for the British, they had previously worked for the Dutch until Ceylon became part of the British Empire. The British then used these fighters against the invading Muslim armies in central India.

We cannot enter the cemetery and are about to give up. The driver appears with the gate in hand, having removed it from its hinges.

Whinging Pome random rule: 363 "Intelligence can sometimes be a burden."

At one point on the road to Bangalore, Darby changes the plan, even if I doubt he had one in the first place. He tells the driver to take a sharp right. We end up in an area known as "Little Tibet". It is thousands of acres gifted as a new home to now 70,000 people who,  in many ways, remain Tibetan. They were welcomed to India, follow Buddhism and hold Indian passports.

Their history is quite sad, as the early settlers had left their homes in Tibet to escape the Chinese invasion. Back in 1960s, the first Prime Minister of an Independent India Nehru, ensured there was a place for these refugees escaping from a country that had become dominated by the Chinese.
We stop in a car park where a massive sixty-foot, gold-domed temple is a beacon for the 6,000 monks and nuns who live in this Tibetan temple complex. We have to walk from the car to the Buddhist complex barefoot. Worse than that, it is a silent complex for visitors. Difficult for the effervescent Darby and me, the shy Whinging Pome.

Monks are chanting, singing, meditating and studying. The age range of the temple dwellers is extremely wide, and we see boys who look hardly ten years old beating small drums whilst chanting. There are many elderly monks. Different temple music is played, and there is chanting throughout the amazing buildings. Learning appears to be a major activity, and classrooms are in abundance.

They say it is the largest teaching centre in the world of its type, with a spiritual and tranquil setting.
As we continue our drive, we realise there is also a tourist location with log cabins amongst vast numbers of beautiful trees. Whilst homeward bound, we have the opportunity to visit Madikeri, a 17th-century walled hilltop town. There is an old church, now converted into a museum. I'm in my element walking through the cemetery, picking out the names of the English buried here. There are a number of other buildings, including an 1812 government building that needs work to convert it into a superb hotel. Given the town's remoteness, this isn't going to happen soon.

My love of India continues. I had an apartment in Delhi, have spent months in Mumbai, spent a year working in and out of Cochin, visited most major cities, toured the country, including Rajasthan, a week on the non-luxury “Palace on Wheels “

"It's luxury, Jim, but not as we know it."

There is so much more I want to do and see in India, especially in the north and on the trains.
Extensive time in India changes you for the better.