DAYS 89 AND 90 – MYSORE

Day 89 – Thursday, 23rd Jan 2014
Day 90 – Friday, 24th Jan 2014

It’s Thursday morning 8:00 am, Khyati and I are walking down Market St, Ooty to our favorite restaurant joint for some hot breakfast. For the morning, we decide to tour the Thread Garden which is right opposite Ooty Lake. This place is something unique. The designer Antony Joseph along with his team of 50 people have designed the entire garden with unique flowers, plants but all the work is done with just plain thread work. There is no stitching or any kind of printing work involved. It’s impressive to see such immense talent brewing among us Indians.

Thread Garden

It’s 11 am and we head to Ooty Lake and take a stroll around the lake. We head back to our hotel by noon just in time to check out and then we take an auto rickshaw to the main bus stand and await our AC bus to Mysore at 1 pm.

It’s 1:30 pm, still no signs of the AC bus. I go again to the enquiry counter and check. The response is “Aayega, bus aayega.” [bus will come] but when? How long do I wait for an AC bus when I saw 2 non AC buses leave for Mysore. Khyati and I had plans to visit Vrindavan Gardens in the evening but if the bus keeps getting delayed, who knows if we will make it?

Finally around 2 pm – Khyati and I decide that we will just head to Mysore in the next non AC bus. No use waiting for an AC bus when we didn’t know the delay time.

The journey was comfortable and we were just happy to be on the road to Mysore.

route to Mysore

In India, you can identify what state is the car/bus from by reading the first two letters of the license plate. On our way to Mysore, we were surprised that a truck from Haryana, North India had made its way all the way to Mysore traversing a distance of over 2500 kms.

Haryana truck in Karnataka

We reach Mysore bus stand by 7 pm and head to our hotel – Gujarat Bhavan in the old part of the town. We take a prepaid auto there. By the time we finish the check in formalities, it’s already 8 pm and there is hardly any time to head to Vrindavan Gardens. We relax for the evening and call it a night by 10 pm.

It’s Friday morning 8:30 am, Khyati and I take an auto rickshaw to the main bus stand. We have hot breakfast at a local restaurant and walk towards Mysore palace. Enroute we see the clock tower.

Clock Tower

Mysore palace is grand. The grandeur of this palace can be seen by the sheer view of the palace from outside. It’s huge and marvelous.

Mysore Palace

Mysore Palace is the main palace of the Hindu king – Krishnaraj Wodeyar. It has been maintained in immaculate condition and no photography is allowed inside. The odd thing was that we were asked to take off our shoes before entering the palace. Legend has it that people consider this palace to be a holy site and there was a temple here. After roaming around the palace, we did not see any temple inside but instead a temple is there on the backside of the palace. Did the kings, queens not wear sandal / shoes while living in the palace?

Post this, we head next door to Jaganmohan Palace. This was the alternate residence of the Mysore king and now houses a lot of paintings and artifacts.

Mysore is famous for sandalwood and artifacts. We visit the local markets just to check out what’s on display. It’s 2:30 pm and we head back to the main bus stand and have some lunch. We have an evening train to catch for Bangalore, our next destination.

It’s 4:30 pm, we have checked out of our hotel and take an auto rickshaw to Mysore Junction railway station. Our train – Tuticorin Express to Bangalore is stationed on platform 1 and we settle in our coach. I call up Karan – our host in Bangalore to inform him of our impending arrival.

Mysore is a city of such historical heritage and it’s hard to cover all tourist attractions in a single day. Khyati and I hope to come back again.

Hope you enjoyed our stay in Mysore. Please let us know by leaving a comment.

We have entered the Nineties of our India travel today. Only 10 days remaining. Stay tuned with us, don’t go anywhere.

Best wishes,
Paras

31. January 2014 by Paras Mamania
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