International Trip - Part IX: The Mysore Excursion

A few hours outside of Bangalore is Mysore, where there is a huge, ornate palace that is a must-see apparently. Since out first full day in Bangalore was a Sunday, and there would be no Weir Services facilities open to tour, they had planned an all day excursion to see this Mysore palace.

We boarded the buses around 6am and started out journey. At about 7:30am, we stopped at a little restaurant for breakfast, and this is what we ate.


It was some sort of deep-fried potato shaped like a doughnut, along with this crepe-style rice cake. Of course, they came with two hot sauces and had both had a slight curry flavor to them. And what should we have to drink for breakfast? How about water and Pepsi?


We always drank from bottled water to minimize any ill effects that could occur from drinking the native water, and we were also told that a Coke a day would help to kill any negative bacteria in our system. Who knows if that's actually true, but I definitely had at least one Coke/Pepsi per day during our time in India. (As a side note, the shirt/tunic I am wearing was one I bought there in India. Deidra is not so fond of it, but it's certainly light and comfortable!)

A few more hours on the road and we came to our first stop. This temple is the burial site of some Indian prince and family that were killed during war with Britian.




As with most of the temples/palaces/shrines/etc. in India, we had to pay to get in and we had to take off our shoes and pay somebody to watch them. Another similar theme during our time in India was constant bombardment of people trying to sell us all sorts of stuff - postcards, wood carvings, fans, jewelry, etc. At times, it was almost unbearable. There was always some random person standing outside of any public restroom that would make you pay him before you could use the facilities. I quickly learned that people will try to make money in any way they can. In fact, we just picked up a tour guide when we got to this temple and paid him to guide us through the rest of the places around Mysore.

The next stop was this spot where two rivers combine to become one. It's supposed to have some sort of healing or spiritual power. There were people going out on these little saucer boats, but we were forbidden by our group leaders from getting in one. Something about drowning, liability, and repatriation of remains, I think. :)



We were all starting to get hungry and tired at this point. We stopped at another large temple, but nobody really wanted to go inside, so we just took pictures like this of the outside and then got back in the bus, anxious to reach our destination.



Finally, we got to our destination - the Mysore Palace. This place was filled with vendors trying to sell you stuff. And if you stopped for even a second to talk to one, three or four more was swarm onto you. Needless to say, it made me a little claustrophobic. I'm usually not one to ignore people, but I did so here as a survival technique. Once we reached that palace we were told that, not only did we have to pay to get in and pay to have someone to watch our shoes, we had to pay someone else to lock up and watch our cameras, since cameras are not allowed inside the palace. But here are the pictures I got from the outside.






I particularly like the last picture and the caption below it. Don't we all feel like that sometimes?

So there's the trip to the Mysore Palace. It was a very long trip and we skipped out on a couple of temples and some sort of awe-inspiring gardens because everyone was so jet-lagged and tired. And because every place you go to costs money to get into.