The buffalo demon is killed, bison are sighted, and Ooty is reached

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We left the hotel at about ten o'clock and drove off towards Mysore. However, we did not leave Bangalore until nearly eleven. The traffic and traffic management systems in the city really are awful.

I noticed a fried chicken shop called Kentacky Chicken Corner, which I thought was probably a good name. Further on there was a temple with a giant green eagle over its doorway. I saw an attractive building and Rangam told me that it was a hospital. A lot of money seems to be poured into making hospitals here look good. This probably does increase the morale of patients and relatives and the recovery rates. There was a very beautiful hospital in Mumbai too, off Marine Drive. Just before we left the town we took a flyover, both the beginning and end of which were marked with a giant arch.

Once we were in the country again I saw strange looking rock formations near the road that reminded me of the karsts in Ao Luk. However, Wikipedia indicates that there are no karsts in India.

I had asked Rangam to stop off at the Janapada Loka Folk Art Museum, which is on the road to Mysore. The museum was very interesting and I spent quite some time there. Before I entered the museum (Rs 10) I walked through the gardens and watched and listned to a traditional dance which seemed to involve a lot of rhythmic drum beating while two young men walked around with what looked like garden gates on their heads.

There were separate guides in each gallery who had a good understanding of the exhibits and I could understand most of their English.

The first gallery had household objects made and used by the people of Karnataka. Plates, cooking utensils, clothes stands, cases, trunks etc. Then I saw a display of photographs of the various tribal peoples of Karnataka. I still don't really completely understand the concept of "tribal people" which seems a bit vague to me. I was told that one of the tribes in Karnataka, for example, is made up of negroid people believed to be the descendants of slaves introduced by the Portuguese four hundred years ago. They could scarcely be thought of as indigenes! Everywhere I went in the museum I could still hear the drums beating outside.

There were weighing machines, one was a balance which worked by using the weight of the arm holding the scale. There was a wooden noodle maker and a collection of cow and ox bells made from different materials.

In the next gallery I saw some larger than life sized dolls called Gaarudi, which were garishly decorated. These are used in a local folk dance which is performed on festivals and, specifically, on Dasara.

A brief excursus. The name of the city I was heading to is Mysore. Relatively short for a South Indian town and hard to abbreviate. The obvious abbreviation would obviously not do, as it might lead to a plague of cats and would scare the elephants away. So the government of Karnataka is trying to change the name to Mysuru instead, but the change has not yet gone through.

But whether the form is Mysore of Mysuru, the origin of the name is Mahishuru - the place where Goddess Durga slew the buffalo demon, Mahishasura. I've seen many sculptures of this event, one I remember from the Museum in Delhi. Dasara is the festival celebrating this event. And as this is the place where the event tok place it is celebrated most devotedly in Mysore. Hence the Gaarudi dolls.

Apart from these big dolls, used in the public ceremonies, there were also smaller counterparts which were used in household devotions. I saw the costumes worn by priests who beat themselves into frenzies during their dances (Solas). There were wedding clothes worn by the brides and grooms and ghost worship articles from Mekkekatte. There were many articles used for puja and a pair of nailed sandals worn by devotees of Lord Shiva.

In an upper gallery I saw a giant drum the beat of which, I was told, could be heard at a distance of two kilometres. As I could still here the beating of the smaller drums outside which must have been 200 metres away and outside the walls, I had no reason to doubt this. Ohter musical instruments included a sort of trumpet which was blown using your nose instead of your mouth and a bagpipes called Tithi.

There was a costume for Ravan, Sita's abductor, with his ten heads and twenty arms clearly indicated. There were shadow puppets and stringed puppets for the plays. There was an interesting collection of ornaments. Peasant people would not normally wear precious stones, of course, and I saw some "jewels" made out of fried rice!

There were copies of the Ramayana and Mahabharata written on palm leaves.

Outside in the grounds was a heritage village where you can wander.

Past the museum, near no town so far as I could see, there was a Barista. I thik they would have done better to open up in Mysore or Bengaluru. Though, having said that, they probably do get a lot of custome from those who drive the connecting road and there was a drive through McDonalds a bit farther on.

Before reaching Mysore, we drove through Srirangapatna where there is a famous Vishnu temple and which was once the capital city of Hyder Ali and Tipoo Sultan. It was also the location of the battle where Tipoo Sultan was finally defeated. They are both buried nearby.

Just before Mysore there was what looked like a Disney castle on the other side of the road. I don't know what that was.

In Mysore, I had wanted to stay at the Ginger Hotel, as I had in Puducherry, but it was full so I am staying at Sandesh the Prince.

I told Rangam I wouldn't want to be driven anywhere until the next morning and went for a walk about the town and a swim in the pool.

We left the hotel at about eight o'clock and drove out of the city through sparsely wooded coutry side, before driving up Chamundi Hill through the early morning mists.

At the top there was a large statue of Mahishasura, showing him in non-buffalo form brandishing a scimitar in his right hand and holding a snake in his left.

The temple on top of the Chamundi Hill is called the Chamundeshwari Temple after the aspect of Durga when killing Mahishasura. It is said to date back to the twelfth century. In a half awake state I bought a basket of two coconuts, two bananas, leaves and flowers togehter with a floral garland to offer to the goddess. Inside the temple a priest took one coconut and split it open, pouring out the milk. I waited in a line while a priest moved a flame around the goddess and then gave an offering. Then I gave the basket to another priest who went away and returned it, minus the unbroken coocnut and the pflowers and leaves. He also put a spot on my head and returned the garland to me.

Outside I gave the bananas to very nice monkey who indicated, politely, that he was partial to that fruit. It was suggested that I gave the broken coconut pieces to a saddhu who lived in the temple grounds and I did so.

I visited the "Godly Museum" which was not a museum so much as a sort of show house for Raja Yoga. This is another name for classical Hindu Yoga and does seem interesting.

After descending the hill (we went in the car - if I'd walked down the steps (there are about 1,000) I'd have seen an even more gigantic Nandi than the one I'd seen the day before - we briefly visited the Lalitha Palace Hotel. This was built in 1921 and was formerly a palace for guests of the maharajah. It is now an expensive hotel.

The Chamundi hill is visible from most parts of the town, together with the temple on hte top.

It was almost ten o'clock now and opeing time for the Maharajah's own palace, the principal sight of Mysore. This is another new palace, which was completed in 1912. I know that's nearly a hundred years old, but in terms of palaces it's still quite new. Only thirty five years after its completion, India was independent and maharajahs lost most of their remaining powers another fifteen or so years later. It seems odd to me that so many crore of rupees were spent on palaces so soon before things changed completely for ever.

Although the palace is new, replacing one about a hundred years older which was made of wood and burned down while a wedding was being celebrated, there are many old temples in the grounds which go back many years. I wandered around the grounds first because you have to surrender your acmera and shoes before entering the palace itself. The first temple that I visited was the Sri Shweta Varahaswami temple which was near the entry gate. This was built in about 1700 and is an attractiive, uncluttered, temple with a brightly painted sanctum. The flagpole stood at an angle.

Moving to the north there was a large courtyard in front of the Palace's Elephant Gate which was gurded by four european style tigers (apparently that's what they are supposed to be, but I thought they were cougars). Opposite the Elephant Gate is the main gateway of the palace, looking amazingly like the Gateway to India.

That's not too surprising, of course, because both were bulit at much the same time and in the same Indo-Saracenic style.

At the north was the Sri Bhuvaneshwari temple which was erected in 1957 so as to balance Sri Shweta Varahaswami.

The oldest temple I went into was the Sri Lakshmiramana Temple which is fifteenth century. It has a narrower gopuram than the others.

Along the outside of the east wall off the palace are two large wooden pavilions with painted ceilings. There's an odd combination of styles with cherubim slightly disguised to look a bit more like devas. Inside I saw the crest that I had seen in Bengaluru. The motto is apparently in Sanskrit, not in Kannada as I'd thought. It still looks odd.

Near the Elephant Gate on the inside are two large elephant heads from elephants shot by the maharajah in 1955, the year I was born. All through the palace you can see mementoes of murdered elephants.

There was a collection of statues of Durga killing Maheshasura. Chamunda is the family deity of the Wodeyars.

In a display cabinet near an elephant howdah was a fly whisk made of ivory. Really thin strands of ivory made up the hairs. What appeared to be red and green jewels in the howdah itself were actually cunningly disguised lights to tell the drivers when to stop and when to go.

Around the gallery were mural paintings of a nineteenth century Dasara procession. They were not particularly attractive but were interesting as a more or less realistic impression of the ceremonies. The whole town, Hindu, Christian and Moslem participated.

Next was the great Marriage Pavilion which had a magnificent stained glass ceiling (made in Glasgow) and a tiled floor (tiles from England). It's an octagonal room with metal columns.

In the portrait gallery was a picture of Raja Krishnaraja IV on a tremendous golden throne so high that here were seven steps to reach the seat.

One picture (of an elephant) is framed by two elephant tusks put together so as to form an oval, with the top being the double headed garuda symbol of the Wodeyars.

I gasped with surprise and pleasure when I entered the Public Durbar Hall. It is simply magnificent. Collonades of brightly decorated bottle-shaped pillars and arches and domes in the ceiling do really make you think of the Thousand and One Nights. I really regret not being able to take a picture of this room. Around hte room there were many interesting paintings - each picture frame was uniquely carved tio match the picture. A balcony leads off from the room (that side is open) giving a view of the maidan and main gateway.

This room is soon due to be used again by the maharaja at teh time of the Dasara festivities. Frantic work was going on. In fact this is true throughout the city. But the newspaper take the view that a lot of roads will not be usable, come Dasara. I would have liked to have been able to be present when the idol of Durga is paraded around the town on elephant back, anyway.

The palace was built at a time when electricity first came to Mysore and advantage was duly taken of this. There is an old fashioned lift outside the Public Durbar Hall and over 96,000 electric lights were installed in the palace.

A corridor leads to the Private Durbar and on the door it is amusing to see the British Lion and Unicorn sharing space with a picture of Krishna sucking his toe (like the ones I saw in Mamallapuram) and one of Lord Shiva.

In the grounds outside, rides were offered on elephants and camels. I saw the camels standing around looking very bored.

Outside the grounds, I was surprised to see a row of men urinating against the Palace railings. Public micturation by males is acceptable behaviour in India but I would have thought that the Maharajah's Palace deserved more respect.

I walked from the main palace to the Jaganmohan Palace, where the Royal Family lived whilst the main palace was being rebuilt (and made fireproof). It is now an art gallery. As I walked along Savaji Rao Road I saw many Indo Saracenic buildings (once ancillary buildings to the palace) most of which were now publicly owned. The Mysore City Corporation building, in particular, looked like a moslem building to me, with its two tall minarets.

Inside the palace, the exhibits were poorly labelled. I liked quite a few landscape paintings, especialy those of Ladakh and the Himalayas. There were several paintings by Nicholas Roerich which liked.

One painting had a room to itself and was called The Glow of Hope. It is by an artist called Sawlaram Haldankar and is of an Indian woman in a sari holding a lit candle in her hand. It was very good, looking realist and reminding me of the work of Joseph Wright of Derby who also did that kind of thing. I'm reading The Moor's Last Sigh at the moment, so was also put in mind of some of the allegorical paintings described in such detail in that book. But this was much simpler. I think it can also be seen as a riposte to Holman Hunt's Light of the World, expressing the hope that salvation can come through secularity and non-communarialism. Perhaps also, the woman is a symbol of Mata Bharat and showing India lighting the way for other nations.

They also had a picture labelled "Rembrandt - Self Portrait", but I wasn't convinced that it was an original!

In the afternoon we went to the Church of St Philomena. Or maybe it was the Cathedral of St Joseph. It seems to be rather schizophrenic with regard to its name. The foundation stone, laid in 1933 in a pleasantly ecumenical way by the maharajah, says it's the church of St Philomena. But a nearby stone, dating from the 1940s calls it the Cathedral of St Joseph. Perhaps it was originally to be called St Philomena's (it houses one of her relics) but was renamed when it was decided that it would be a cathedral. Most of the signs around the church call it St Joseph's but it is still locally known as St Philomena's.

The church is beautiful on the outside with two high spires at its front, (said to be an hommage to Cologne Cathedral) but I thought that it was let down by its unexceptional interior. In the crypt I passed by the Saint's relics and a statue of her.

I have seen some more black and white cows and another that was almost all black. I am now fairly convinced that there are black and white cows in India.

Next day we made an early departure for the Mudamalai Wildlife Reserve which is near Masinagudi, just over the border and back in Tamil Nadu again.

We drove parallel to the long stretch of the Chamundi Hills, the first of which, fronting the town has the great temple on its summit. We drove past some beautiful lakes on the left had side. After that, on both sides of the road was wild green grass and palm trees. I think some may have been rubber trees, because I saw a rubber factory.

The view was great, but the road was rotten. Most of the time ol one side of the road was useable and that was strewn with sand and rocks and peppered with potholes.

As we continued we passed paddy fields, the rice plants deep in water, glowing yellow and green in the morning light.

The road began zigzag and we started to climb up the Nilgiri hills to Bhandipur. The road was quite good at this point and Rangam was driving fast, we took one of those chicane things at quite a speed.

Now there began to be quite thick jungle on bot sides of the road, signs appeared saying "This is the den of wildlife". We had reached the Karnataka part of the game reserve. As soon as we passed the state border we had arrived in Mudamalai.

We drove straight to Glen View, the rather Scottish sounding "resort" where I was to stay the night in a treehouse. It looked lovely when I got there. It was in the middle of a clearing in the jungle right next to the Reserve. The house could only be reached by two bamboo ladders with the rungs wrapped in carpet. The first led to a sort of landing and then the second to a verandah and the door to the treehouse.

The furnishings, though plain, appeared adequate - there was a bed, a bedside cabinet and a fan and an adjoining wc with taps and a bucket. I was told that one tap would produce hot water, but it never did.

There was no air conditioning but that didn't matter. The altitude of 3,750 feet (not counting the treehouse's own height meant that the room was pleasantly cool.

What I didn't realise, as I approved the room, was that beneath the clean bedcovers lay dirty sheets, that the ceiling leaked directly on to the bed (as well as sundry other places in the room) whenever it rained and that, despite these apparent shortcomings, mosquitoes delighted to gather there. And the toilet seat was broken.

I only found these things out when the monsoon rain decided to descend in earnest that night. It was pitch black outside and climbing up ad down those stairs was not easy in the day when they were dry. I thought of getting dressed and going to the office to complain and to ask for another room but I wasn't sure that anyone would be in the office at that time and was't sure I'd be able to fid it in the dark (I did have my head torch but it was packed away at the bottom of my main pack which I hadn't unpacked as I was only staying one day.

So I got my silk sleeping bag cover out and used that and tried to stay on oe side only of the single bed. I actually slept pretty well in the end and had some vivid dreams, wich I have now unfortunately forgotten.

The afternoon before, after arriving and before gong to bed, I had been on two safaris. For the first one I was mounted on an elephant. As I waited to get on, I was surrounded by mokeys darting up and down the bamboo poles of the waiting place.

Before I climbed into the howdah, I noticed that the front of both of the elephant's tusks had been cut off and asked about this. I was told that this was to stop the male elephants hurting each other badly when they fought. I suppose it also adds a bit to the ivory market.

The elephant plodded slowly and heavily on his way amaitaining the same pace whether on level ground or mounting a hill. I have really been impressed with the hill climbing skills of elepants. Of course Hannibal famously took some over the Alps with him - and I belive those were Indian ones too, not pachyderms from his native Africa.

Quite soon we were out of sight of the mounting platforms and the jungle was all aroud us. The trees grew fairly thickly but not too close together, maybe an average of six yards between each tree. But the undergrowth grew exuberantly everywhere, sometimes just green bushes, but sometimes displaying brilliantly coloured flowers.

I saw some deer, on male with large antlers and some bison. The mahout said he saw a peacock, but I didn't see it. I remember seeing peacocks whe I was on camel back in the Thar desert - now that was something!

My second safari was by jeep and that one largely kept to the same roads I had travelled with Rangam on the way in. The difference, of course, is that I was now accompanied by an spotter who pointed out animals that I would otherwise have missed.

He also told me that the tigers were only the third most dangerous animals on the reserve (even without counting humans). More dagerous than the tigers were the panthers and more dangerous still were wild or untrained elephants.

As I understood his story, a Swiss woman had travelled here about two years ago and, very near the place where my tree house stands, been killed by elephants. He also explained that to attract elephants, trackers would put some salt on the ground ad the elephants would always come as they absolutely love the taste of salt - it's like sweets are to children to them.

This time I saw more monkeys, more deer - spotted ones this time (that is to say they had spots) and some more bison. It had begun to rain by now, only gently and not as it would later on thundering down with the full force of the monsoon. This added to the beauty of the jungle as seen from the jeep - the flowers and leaves of the undergrowth reflected back its sloping rays and twinkled like precious gems.

There are roadsigns telling drivers to give way to elephants with an amusing cartoon of a driver ignoring the herd of elephants that are about to flatten his car.

The next morning, after my rather damp sleep, I walked around the "resort". Some elephant bones were hanging behind the eating area but I could not understand the explanation I received about them.

As we left Masinagudi, we passed a procession celebrating the opening of a new Hindu temple.

We drove on to Udhagamandalam. Most towns in South India seem to either chage their name or abbreviate it. Udhagamandalam has done both. It's name under the British Raj was Ootacamund and this was (sensibly) abbreviated to Ooty. Despite the name change it still seems to be univerally known as Ooty.

Nothing becomes Ooty so well as the getting to it ad the leaving of it. The beauty of the scenery seen as you approach and leave the town eclipses anything in the town itself. Unfortunately, I cannot describe it and the photos that I took only feebly represent the majesty and richness of the views.

There are no fewer than thirty six hairpin bends as you drive up the mountainside to Ooty, which is at a height of 7,500 feet. And those bends are really hairpins and there are may more bends which would be called hairpin anywhere else. Each of the hairpins has a numbered sign telling you how may more of these deathtraps you have to negotiate. Looking down the mountainside you see spectacular waterfalls, terraced cultivated fields at seemingly impossible angles, an amazing interplay of colour as the sunlight shines on part of the mountain while some is in shadow, together with the differing green colours of the landscape itself. On either sde of the winding road stood tall and slender trees. I think it's an effect of the light here, but the yellows and greens of the fields somehow look more vibrant than in England.

I saw a group of white buildings high on a hill and asked if that were Ooty? It wan't, it was just a village. But it looked like a shining city on that hill to me.

From Masinagudi to Ooty is only 26km, but our journey took nearly an hour and a half. You wouldn't want to speed on that road. I'm not even sure if I'd like to drive on it. Maybe . .

Signs on the roadside hail Ooty as the Queen of Hill Stations and the hill on which it stands as the Queen of Hills.

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