On Saturday I embarked on my first real tourist trip. Until then I had seen quite a bit of Bangalore, and ticked off many of the top spots recommended in the Lonely Planet, but Bangalore itself is not really known as a tourist hot spot, it is a city that gets on with day to day life. In a way it is the perfect place to be based for six weeks. Instead of visiting numerous parks and temples I am quite content with walking around the streets, getting a feel for big city India, because, really, that is what it does best (or worst, depending which way you look at it) - the parks and temples are to come.
But on Saturday I had my first dose of park and temple travelling. About 120km south of Bangalore is a "smaller' town called Mysore. It is known as much more of a tourist hotspot - Lonely Planet describes it as "one of the most flamboyant places you could visit in South India". Everyone had told me I needed to go there. So I organised a driver and a car (something very common here) to take me. I also invited Cheeku along, partly because it would be nice to have some company and also because I was a bit worried about driving around with a strange man (which, as it turned out, I need not have worried about, the driver was lovely, and I think - though can't be positive - he has invited me to his families' Diwali celebrations, akin to me inviting someone to my families' Christmas dinner).
So off we toddled to Mysore - although it is about 120km, the drive took three and a half hours...each way! I don't want to bog you down with too much detail, so will lightly skim over each activity - safely assume I was blown away by each and every thing I saw.
On the way we stopped at Cheeku's family home, a lovely home nestled in a small village surrounded by picturesque farmland. Then on to Srirangapatnam, 16km north of Mysore. It is an 'island', surrounded by rivers and riddled with history - for most of the 18th century it was the de facto capital for much of southern India under rule by a man called Tipu Sultan. We visited and went inside a Hindu temple here, holy men praying and all. Then on to Tipu Sultan's summer palace - a well kept garden and palace where he would spend his summers. The inside of the palace was the particularly stunning part, covered in amazingly intricate artwork (I couldn't take photos unfortunately, though doesn't seem to matter since this dam blog is still refusing to upload photos). Then on to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. I wasn't particularly excited about the bird sanctuary (sorry Jane, I know you will not be too impressed with your niece right now), but like everything I have seen in India so far it pleasantly surprised me. The birds themselves were fairly ho-hum, it was the alligators that caught my attention. We went out on a river in a small row boat with about ten others to see all the birds, and alligators. I saw two - but was told there was about 50 swimming about in the river. Also saw a tree full of bats, ugh! After leaving the bird sanctuary we finally made it to Mysore where we had lunch (palak paneer) before going to its main attraction - Maharaja's Palace. A massive palace oozing with money from every crevice. Interesting side note - apparently there is a curse on the royal family which live there which means none of the kings can have children, so they have to adopt in every new king - imagine being adopted into that family! Then we went up Chamundi Hill - one of the eight most holiest hills in southern India (so a sign told me on the way up). It had amazing views of the area and another stunning temple. The particular highlight of this leg of the trip was seeing monkeys - Cheeku couldn't quite understand my excitement when I saw the first one, then we turned the corner and saw about 20 - you can only imagine my squeals of delight. By this stage I was exhausted and full of information so we headed home, but not before getting a well deserved sweet coffee.
Interesting note - as a foreigner I had to often pay ten times as much as Cheeku at every attraction. It was official and everything - on the price board there would be a "local" price and a "foreigner" price. For example, at Maharaja's Palace, Cheeku paid 20 Rupee, I paid 200. I'm not sure what happens for people who aren't obviously a foreigner but aren't from India, or who look like one but have lived in India their whole life. I can imagine there are a few arguments at the pay counter.
Photos! Are there any on FB?
ReplyDelete