Pondicherry to Mysore

We left the flatlands of the interior behind and went on to Pondicherry, the former French colony. We walked along the beachfront and had lunch at a French cafe. Most of the architechture had a very Franco feel to it, even the police wore french style uniforms.

From there we had a short bus ride to Mamallapuram and it's unique single stone temples and carvings. These ones really blew us away. It must have taken forever to carve these out of solid granite. They were mostly finished in the 8th century and look as fresh today as they did last month.

We took the overnight train from Chennai to Mysore, the journey took about 12 hours and we slept 8 to a compartment. That may sound cramped but it was really quite comfy. The 3 bottles of wine on the journey might have helped though.

Mysore is a sort of small town, only 850 thousand people but it seems like every one of them is out on the street at all times. Boy is it busy. The Palace of the Maharaja is positively spectacular. I only wish that I'd been allowed to take photos inside.

We spend 2 night here and then we're off to the hills again, to the Mudumali wildlife sanctuary for some tiger shooting.

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