[India] A trip to Mysore
May. 11th, 2008 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Yesterday I took a chartered bus trip around Mysore, Karnataka, India.
OK, since I promised you a monkey in the cut, here you go:
As I was saying, yesterday I took a bus tour of Mysore. For it, I got up at 5:45 in order to be out the door at 6:00 so that I could make sure that I arrived at the bus station by 6:30. It turns out that I was fine; I arrived at 6:20 or so. Then I waited for the tour bus; it didn't show up until about 6:45.
The bus arrived in Mysore about 10:30 or so. That included stops at other offices of the tour company to pick up several more sets of passengers, and a stop for breakfast. I was mostly lost at the breakfast place, until a kind man who spoke more American English than the cashier did took pity upon me, and guided me both through getting things ordered and also what would be good for me to order. He didn't much like the taste of the food, though I thought it was perfectly fine. (I had a steamed patty of ground rice, and torus fried something else - probably also rice. One of them was named something like "igdli", but I didn't figure out which one it was.) Sadly, he was riding on a different tour bus, and I didn't spot him again.
I was amused that the bus would periodically pass carts pulled by some cow-like animal, while driving along the highway. I was also amused when I noticed us passing a family of four on a two-wheeler (motorcycle).
We covered a number of sights, or programmes as the tour guide called them.
On the way back, we stopped at a complete dive of a greasy spoon. I guess greasy food knows no borders. You could tell that the tour guide and bus driver were getting some kickbacks, because the tour guide was picked up and dropped off about two minutes down the road. I'm still feeling that food in the pit of my stomach.
So, that was my day trip to Mysore. The photos are at Flickr. It's now 2:30, and I'm going to see if I can take in Bangalore's Lal Bagh gardens.
OK, since I promised you a monkey in the cut, here you go:
As I was saying, yesterday I took a bus tour of Mysore. For it, I got up at 5:45 in order to be out the door at 6:00 so that I could make sure that I arrived at the bus station by 6:30. It turns out that I was fine; I arrived at 6:20 or so. Then I waited for the tour bus; it didn't show up until about 6:45.
The bus arrived in Mysore about 10:30 or so. That included stops at other offices of the tour company to pick up several more sets of passengers, and a stop for breakfast. I was mostly lost at the breakfast place, until a kind man who spoke more American English than the cashier did took pity upon me, and guided me both through getting things ordered and also what would be good for me to order. He didn't much like the taste of the food, though I thought it was perfectly fine. (I had a steamed patty of ground rice, and torus fried something else - probably also rice. One of them was named something like "igdli", but I didn't figure out which one it was.) Sadly, he was riding on a different tour bus, and I didn't spot him again.
I was amused that the bus would periodically pass carts pulled by some cow-like animal, while driving along the highway. I was also amused when I noticed us passing a family of four on a two-wheeler (motorcycle).
We covered a number of sights, or programmes as the tour guide called them.
- The first place we stopped was the mausoleum of Tippu Sultan, who ruled the kingdom of Mysore and resisted colonial rule. In this mausoleum were the bodies of Tippu, his father, and his mother, and there are graves for many of his soldiers also on the grounds. There were some gorgeous details on the architecture, especially around the graves of Tippu and his parents.
One of the customs in India is that when you visit a sacred site, you remove your shoes out of respect. I did so both for this mausoleum and for the temple we visited next. My feet wound up getting quite toasty hot.
I didn't get much time to explore here, because the bus tour left after twenty minutes.
- The second place we visited was the summer palace of Tippu Sultan. I don't have a lot to say for this one, because again we only had twenty minutes but the foreigners (that's me!) had to buy a special ticket to get in, so that ate up about a third of my time. The gardens here are supposed to be remarkable - I don't think I got to see them. There was also a museum that I had time to run through.
This is also where I met a quartet of guys that I generally hung around with for the rest of the trip, because one of them was also a foreigner, from Canada. (Obligatory group photo here.)
- Next we went on to Srirangapatnam, which was the capital of Tippu Sultan and the fort where he was ultimately defeated by the British. The town had a number of landmarks, including a mosque built by Tippu Sultan that is still in use today, the place where Tippu Sultan's body was found dead, and Ranganathaswamy temple. This is where we stopped.
Again, we didn't stay for long, but this was an impressive place. The temple is hundreds of years old (I think about 700), and is still in use even though it's now a tourist destination as well. This was truly beautiful.
To the left you'll see a cart that's located just outside the temple itself. This cart is over 500 years old (you can see the remnants of one of its former wheels on the ground to the left). It's used to carry the goddess around during an annual celebration. The figures on it are quite impressive - be sure to check them out.
After departing the temple, we drove past two palaces of the Maharaja. The first was his personal residence, and the second was his guest residence. They are several kilometers apart. I guess the Maharaja didn't want to see guests when they were visiting.
- The fourth place we visited was the Chamundeswari Temple. This is an active temple, and quite crowded. People go in with offerings, and the people in the temple will make the offerings for you and dot your third eye with a red paste.
I was under the impression that the temple was dedicated to Kali, but Wikipedia suggests that it's dedicated to Shakti (in the form of Durga) instead.
After we left the temple, my four companions stopped for fresh coconuts. (I don't like coconut, so I didn't have one.) People here will sell them to you, then chop off enough of it to stick a straw in and drink. When you're finished, they'll chop the coconut in half so that you can eat the meat. Then the rest is left on the ground, where the cows eat it. (Yes, there are plenty of cows everywhere outside of the downtown areas, and even some in them too.)
On our way down the hill from the temple, we saw a Nandi (statue of a bull) that was the fourth largest in southern India. We then stopped for lunch, where I had paneer masala, somewhat to the surprise of my Indian companions. On our way back to the bus, a street vendor tried to get the other white guy to buy a anklet, and then demanded more money after being given his full asking price. That was funny.
- Next was some shopping. I looked for a sari for
tigira, but they kept showing me the ones that were 5000 - 9000 rupees. That's $125 to $225, which is more than I wanted to spend on a single outfit. I'll just get it somewhere else.
- Next up was St. Philomena's Church, which was a pretty impressive cathedral built in the 1700's. However, it didn't hold my interest very much.
- After that was the Jaganmohan Palace museum, which began life as a mansion built by the Maharaja. It has now been converted to a museum. This place extensively features the works of a local artist, S. L. Haldankar. They are quite striking.
Hmm. I was originally thinking that I'd go order a print when I got back home, but now I can't find much by him on the net. Some of the works there were just so rich, both in terms of craft and subject. That's sad.
I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, because I started to feel myself getting overheated. I got back to the bus for my water, and sat down for a while. Happily, the weather changed by the time we got to the next stop, so the temperature dropped.
- The next place we stopped was the Maharaja's palace. I say "stopped" because we didn't visit it, due to the local elections. It was closed from visiting.
Still, we stopped at the gates, and I got a few photos of the palace from afar, through the wrought iron gates. We spent about ten minutes there, looking at it from about a third of a mile away.
Oddly, at this point people started coming up to me and asking to have their photo taken with me. I don't know why, but they wanted it. I suppose they just wanted a picture of them with the token white guy or something.
- Lastly, we went to the Brindavan Gardens. I think this one would have been a lot more fun if we had arrived about half an hour earlier, because we arrived just at dusk. So, we got there with just about enough time to get through the lines and then not see any of the flowers because of the poor light.
Still, the place had one nighttime attraction, a dancing fountain. I caught a little bit of it, but I was blocked by the impressive crowd around it. There was enough of a crowd that I left the show early, because I was mostly seeing the back of people's heads.
On the way back, we stopped at a complete dive of a greasy spoon. I guess greasy food knows no borders. You could tell that the tour guide and bus driver were getting some kickbacks, because the tour guide was picked up and dropped off about two minutes down the road. I'm still feeling that food in the pit of my stomach.
So, that was my day trip to Mysore. The photos are at Flickr. It's now 2:30, and I'm going to see if I can take in Bangalore's Lal Bagh gardens.