Mysore
Okay so I’ve finally experienced this sea of humanity thing, as Steph and I tried to navigate the train and bus stations of Bangalore. There were thousands of people waiting to head back to their villages after Sunday shopping in Bangalore. Everyone was sitting on the floor, and enthralled with the two white girls trying to get through with their backpacks. We first headed to the train station, as Steph’s guidebook highly recommended the train because of what was sure to be a terrifying bus ride, but we just missed the train by 20 minutes and the next one wasn’t for 6 hours later. We decided to take our chances and walked to the bus station, which was the Indian equivalent of moving through Times Square station at rush hour. The bus was leaving in a half an hour and would get us into Mysore at 11:00 instead of 2:00am. We climbed into what was a glorified school bus where I spent most of the ride bracing myself for the next speed bump that sent me flying out of my chair.
We arrived in Mysore late and headed to the nearest hotel, which was not exactly what we were hoping for – as the beds had huge lumps in them, and the sheets smelled of Ayurvedic oil. We agreed to “upgrade” the next day. Of course, we moved to our new hotel the next morning only to find that it had a squat toilet. But besides the accommodations, Mysore was lovely and reminded me a bit of Madurai – somewhere between the other small towns we’d been in and Bangalore. We spent the morning in the train station getting a refund on our other tickets and booking an overnight train from Bangalore to Madurai. We had a delicious lunch of thalis served on banana leaves at a restaurant where the only other foreigners were a table of Buddhist monks. That afternoon we signed up for an afternoon tour which seemed like an easier way to get around town. The whole tour ran from 8:30am – 7:30 pm, but we thought that seemed a bit ridiculous and only signed up for the afternoon to meet them at 2pm.
We went to a lot of temples, and the Manarajah’s palace that had a spectacular royal wedding room with a beautiful stained glass ceiling. At the palace, Steph and I ended up with a line of Indian families that wanted to take a picture with us. We literally had to cut it off and announce that we wouldn’t do anymore. Although, I’ve kind of gotten used to it, Steph still thinks it’s the weirdest thing, and we have to wonder how many framed photos we’ll be displayed in. The most impressive part of the tour, I thought, was the Krishna Raja Sagar dam. With all of the rains, and flooding in the north, after evacuating 21,000 in the people, they’d released 1,13,000 cusecs (whatever that means, it was A LOT of water, though). There were thousands of people there and I got some great pics that I’ve added to Ofoto if you’re interested.
That night we dined at our favorite restaurant yet. There was live music and it was fairly crowded. We even saw our first cute foreign guys. Just our luck that the restaurant seats women and families around the balcony and only single men downstairs. They also seat Indians around the perimeter and foreigners in the center to discourage fraternizing. Oh well, at least the food was amazing, and it was so good we went back the next day for lunch.
The next morning we paid a taxi driver $7 to drive us around for the morning to Chamundi Hill to see the temple, Shiva’s bull, and Shiva’s bull’s balls (see photo). He also suckered us into stopping at an incense and oil shop where I’m sure we got swindled (but only out of about $20). We then hit the Mysore markets, not much in the way of shopping, but I did get some more great pics. Finally, we hit up the last store before leaving Mysore where between the two of us we bought 5 pashmina’s (I just can’t get over these prices!). We then headed to the train station for our big adventure home – a 14 hour overnight train from Mysore to Madurai.
We arrived in Mysore late and headed to the nearest hotel, which was not exactly what we were hoping for – as the beds had huge lumps in them, and the sheets smelled of Ayurvedic oil. We agreed to “upgrade” the next day. Of course, we moved to our new hotel the next morning only to find that it had a squat toilet. But besides the accommodations, Mysore was lovely and reminded me a bit of Madurai – somewhere between the other small towns we’d been in and Bangalore. We spent the morning in the train station getting a refund on our other tickets and booking an overnight train from Bangalore to Madurai. We had a delicious lunch of thalis served on banana leaves at a restaurant where the only other foreigners were a table of Buddhist monks. That afternoon we signed up for an afternoon tour which seemed like an easier way to get around town. The whole tour ran from 8:30am – 7:30 pm, but we thought that seemed a bit ridiculous and only signed up for the afternoon to meet them at 2pm.
We went to a lot of temples, and the Manarajah’s palace that had a spectacular royal wedding room with a beautiful stained glass ceiling. At the palace, Steph and I ended up with a line of Indian families that wanted to take a picture with us. We literally had to cut it off and announce that we wouldn’t do anymore. Although, I’ve kind of gotten used to it, Steph still thinks it’s the weirdest thing, and we have to wonder how many framed photos we’ll be displayed in. The most impressive part of the tour, I thought, was the Krishna Raja Sagar dam. With all of the rains, and flooding in the north, after evacuating 21,000 in the people, they’d released 1,13,000 cusecs (whatever that means, it was A LOT of water, though). There were thousands of people there and I got some great pics that I’ve added to Ofoto if you’re interested.
That night we dined at our favorite restaurant yet. There was live music and it was fairly crowded. We even saw our first cute foreign guys. Just our luck that the restaurant seats women and families around the balcony and only single men downstairs. They also seat Indians around the perimeter and foreigners in the center to discourage fraternizing. Oh well, at least the food was amazing, and it was so good we went back the next day for lunch.
The next morning we paid a taxi driver $7 to drive us around for the morning to Chamundi Hill to see the temple, Shiva’s bull, and Shiva’s bull’s balls (see photo). He also suckered us into stopping at an incense and oil shop where I’m sure we got swindled (but only out of about $20). We then hit the Mysore markets, not much in the way of shopping, but I did get some more great pics. Finally, we hit up the last store before leaving Mysore where between the two of us we bought 5 pashmina’s (I just can’t get over these prices!). We then headed to the train station for our big adventure home – a 14 hour overnight train from Mysore to Madurai.
posted by An Indian Summer - Katherine Scott @ 9:47 PM
1 Comments:
At 5:11 AM,
Martin said…
The real estate is one sector that features as one of the most badly hit sectors following the global economic meltdown. Especially in developing countries like India, where real estate was going great guns, so to say, faced a steep downfall following the recession and inflation. Especially in the metros and the developing cities like Bangalore, real estate suffered dearly as the demand for the residential units, though increasing became a pent up demand. The badly hit economy particularly the IT sector that has a strong foothold in Bangalore, and the high rates of interest in home loans made the demand for residential units go down or at best become a pent up demand. It is believed that once the situation stabilizes the demands would start surfacing. Another very problematic issue that the real estate dealers are facing is that patrons of the currently booked flats are not willing to pay the original price that they had agreed on but the current price that is less than the original amount owing to the current economic condition. Not only the residential units but the commercial properties like the hotels in Bangalore have also naturally seen a drop in their occupancy. The ITC hotels in Bangalore that registered the highest occupancy, as high as 83%, have been forced to cut down on their tariffs by almost 20% as the occupancy has also gone down by 20%. On the contrary, the business hotels in Bangalore are surviving the tough times as the number of business travelers has not been affected as hard as the umber of leisure hotels. The budget hotels in Bangalore have seen a hike owing to the obvious reasons.
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