Mysore

Two days after Bannerghata, we went to Mysore with my friend Chetan. Early Saturday morning we head out of the crazy city into open country and clear, decent roads through hills and rice paddies and sugar cane fields, and bamboo forests. OK.. THAT'S more like it!  I knew this India was here somewhere! It's beautiful and peaceful and a nice 2 hour drive from the outskirts of Bangalore to Mysore. We stop for breakfast of filtered coffee and a kind of Idli I had not had yet, kind of flat like a pancake and I think called a Tatte Idli, and then off we went.

Chetan's plans included a stop at Janapada Loka, a place along the way with some cultural and folk art displays similar to Dakshinichitra in Chennai, but this one was not quite as developed. It was nice, it was hot, there were beautiful artifacts to be seen, but it just seemed a bit untended, although we did get a demonstration of pottery making from days way before there was electricity. Just some elbow grease to get the wheel going, and he created the whole pot to perfection before that wheel came to a stop. Next door was a great restaurant where we had lunch and then we stopped to shop for trinkets.  And boy did we find trinkets! We're bringing back a lot of what we found there, so no details on what the presents are. Just know that we had to stop back there on the return trip on Monday morning to pick up more of what we had found here and no where else!!  Then, on to Mysore, city of palaces and Mysore Silk! 

Beautiful city, organized, clean, no traffic jams ;) and there are HORSES running through the streets.  Loose horses! I said.. whaaa..?  I knew about the loose cows and buffalo everywhere,   (as seen to the right )
the loose goats were a surprise, but HORSES?  I guess that's the "thing" in Mysore.  The Maharajahs had horses, and the horses have remained, drawing carriages and carts, horse racing, and beautiful specimens of horse and pony just trotting through the streets.  I LOVED that!  Go driving down a street and 4-5 gorgeous horses go trotting by, all free and unfettered. Quite amazing! and beautiful! Others are teeny, tiny little horses or ponies, used for pulling small carts of tourists around. Very cute!

We checked into another, and probably our LAST $22.00 per night hotel.   It's good to know they exist, they are plentiful and can be had, but I'm done with the cheap hotels. This one was very similar to the one in Chennai and Chittoor- peeling paint on the walls, rock hard bed, no screen on the bathroom window so mosquitoes and other bugs just come strolling or flying on in, had to ask for a towel (FINALLY someone tells me that Indians bring their own towels!  doh!  never even occurred to me) and right on a busy street with traffic noise all night long. By traffic noise I don't mean New York City traffic noise, I mean Indian City traffic noise.  BIG difference.  Huge.  The array of car horn "music" for both honking and backing up is endless.  All night long is insomnia inducing.  And then there's the cockroach the size of a mouse that Lisa saw. In her room. That came later.

We checked in early afternoon, had a late lunch at a nearby hotel that looked awfully attractive in comparison to the one we were booked into with a great restaurant, beer garden, pool and on a quiet street... hmmm very attractive, and we went off to see the Palace.. er, I mean the Infosys Training campus in Mysore.

Built to resemble the Colosseum in Rome,it's amazing and beautiful and grand yet understated and a really nice place to stay while training to work for Infosys. 

For more of the photos of the campus, see here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=154703&id=625456793&l=85d40cc387

After touring the campus, we drove to Brindavan Gardens to view the musical fountain. The gardens are created behind the Krishnaraja Sagar dam, which crosses the Cauvery river, one of the principal rivers of South India. It's a huge dam, and must be spectacular to watch when the water releases. Outside the garden we found a festival atmosphere with booths of foods and drinks, people selling all sorts of mostly crap for too much money, and the usual horde of people that is everywhere in India. Our white skin really glows at night or something, cuz I swear, they see us and it's like mosquitoes coming at us from all angles, wanting to sell  postcards, and pipes and drums and fake "antique" coins, and fake sandalwood stuff, and fake carved boxes, and jewelry. Oy. But, comes with the territory. We take a bridge over the lake and then go through the gardens, and then up and through some more gardens and they really are beautiful. 

The dam is to the right in the above picture, and this is just one small part of the gardens. There's back-lighting and colored lighting and just enough light to seem kind of magical and starlit. Just at 7pm, we are climbing to the top garden where the musical fountain is and the music starts up and "thar she blows"! Chetan and Lisa move up closer to the fountain to take pics and I hung back outside the crowd, and found myself mixed in with quite a few other westerners.  I heard German and English and other languages I could not identify. Then all around us are the locals who are hooting and hollering to the Kannada movie music that is playing and to which the lights and the fountain are synchronized. Fun, very nice way to pass the time amongst beauty and enthusiastic youth and listening to many languages and smelling flowers and greenery on a beautiful evening. Then, it's over and we stroll back over the long bridge and through the carnival atmosphere back to the car and head back to the Infosys campus for dinner. 

Dinner was a buffet served in a "floating" restaurant in the middle of the campus. We are surrounded and appear to be on top of a man-made pool filled with HUGE koi and other fish. Nice, very pleasant, and a beautiful night to sit outside on water and enjoy the peace and quiet of the campus. After a nice dinner we head back to the hotel. Lisa heads up to her room, I wait for Chetan, who has to park his little car in a littler parking spot. Once I get to my room which is next to Lisa's I see a flurry of activity.  Apparently there was a cockroach the size of a mouse in her room and the front desk guy was doing battle with a can of bug spray and was fumigating. (I think I still feel that in my lungs  ;) Lisa was a bit frazzled, and I don't blame her. But, it's late, we are tired, and things settle down and we go to sleep, with next day maybe finding a different hotel. That was confirmed the next morning when none of us had slept due to the traffic noise all night long.  Apparently we are on a well traveled road, and of course, every vehicle that passes has to honk at least once to let us know they are there. And all three of our rooms are on the street side. 

If there's one thing  I could change about India....  well, I'm not going there.  I know and decided way before coming here that acceptance is the answer, and since coming here that attitude has proved to be the best way to maintain sanity...and to make friends.  :)  but that honking of horns... well,  I'm  just sayin'.  

Sunday morning we woke up, and all of us knew we were changing hotels. We went back over to the one we were at yesterday, the Park Lane to have breakfast and check to see if they had availability.  They did. for rs 100 more than the one we stayed at...  about $2.00 more.  SOLD!! 

We packed up and checked into rooms that were quiet, very comfortable with good air conditioning, no open windows letting in smells and bugs, beds that were actually softer than a board and nice bedding and room service. Big exhale and ahhhhhhhh.  Nice change. Then we headed out to the Mysore Palace. The Palace is historic, lived in, full of beautiful commissioned artwork, hand carved and inlaid wood, silver and gold, a museum and an audio tour. It's very grand, very beautiful, and well worth seeing. Even if we (foreigners) get charged 20 times what the locals do for the tour! It was worth it.  On Sunday nights throughout the year and then for the entire Dusara Festival in October, the palace is lit by over 100,000 twinkling lights. We left in the afternoon to go shopping and napping, and came back to the palace for the lighting. We happened to drive up just as they flicked the switch from off to on, so saw the whole thing come ablaze as we arrived. Couldn't have been better timing! 

 

For the full set of photos, see here:   Mysore Palace Photos

The rest of the day we spent shopping and touring other parts of the city. We were taken by our tuk-tuk or auto-rickshaw driver to a very nice store chock full of Mysore Silk!. I am now the proud owner of a Mysore Silk Sari.  And, a few other pieces of silk.  And scarves. The sales guy did his best to help me decide which sari to buy:

Idn't he pretty?  :)  Which one did I buy?  Maybe you'll see later....  

Before we went to the lighting of the palace, we were at the Kauvery emporium, one of the official places where real sandalwood and rosewood items are sold.  While Lisa was having her purchase wrapped for shipping, I stepped outside the door to get some air. One of the men there is telling me I'm looking at an old convent where the Sisters still live and teach, and it's beautiful and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden the peace is broken by sounds coming at me from both the left and the right, and it's amazing, and loud, and stunning.  The man that was standing out their with me can see questioning face, and tells me that there are mosques on both sides of me, and I'm hearing the call to prayer.  I'm listening in stereo to the Muslim call to prayer while I'm looking at a classic, Catholic convent and church, while I'm talking to a Hindu.  I love this. 

For dinner that night we went out to a very nice hotel for a buffet, but there was no buffet. What there was, was tables setup with linen in a courtyard inside a 5 star hotel, underneath a gigantic mango tree strung with twinkling lights and candles. It was lovely, peaceful and the food was wonderful. Only thing wrong was that they were out of french fries for Lisa. We could deal with that.  And have I mentioned how absolutely beautiful the evenings are here in South India?  After the awful, hard, blasting heat of the day, the evenings are soft, and cool, and amazing. Everyone comes out of their homes and offices and hits the streets and the shops and the sidewalk vegetable stands getting ready for dinner or buying their dinner from the stalls.  I ride home from work in an air-conditioned car, but I ask for the air to be turned off and roll down the windows.  The evenings are so beautiful, they make the days almost bearable.  ;) 

 At 6:30 the next morning, I awoke to a noise outside my hotel window, and got out of bed to find out what it was.  I opened the window and heard the early morning call to prayer from a mosque while I watched the horizon turn pink. I was very fortunate to hear this call done by someone with a beautiful, calm, and clear voice, and it gave me goosebumps to stand their and listen and watch.  Awesome way to start the day.  

And then we headed back to Bangalore and work.  But had a great weekend and I love Mysore!