Our visit to Mysore & some of the best tourist attractions around Mysore

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Mysore has always been one of the major tourist attractions in South India. My previous visit to Mysore was about 20 years ago, when I was in college. I still keep a lot of great memories of that college trip to Mysore and we remember some of the words from the tourist guide in the palace.

After we moved from USA to Bangalore, we wanted to visit all of the major tourist attractions around Bangalore and Mysore was an obvious choice. Many people from Bangalore visit Mysore and return on the same day. However, considering there are several places to see in Mysore, it may not be a fun trip if you rush from place to place with a tight schedule in hand. Two days is ideal to see most attractions in Mysore.

We wanted to make it a real fun trip and so we decided to spend 2 nights and 2 full days in Mysore.

Brindavan Garden, Mysore

We started after lunch from Bangalore. The drive was very comfortable in the highway. We were estimating to reach Brindavan Garden by around 4:30 but got lost the way in Mysore town and so it was about 6'O clock when we entered the garden. It was very crowded and we could not enjoy the garden since it was already dark. We took a small boat trip within the garden, watched the musical fountain and exited the place at about 7:30pm.

Our stay in Hotels

We did not have a hotel reservation in Mysore. That is becoming a practice for us these days. Most of the weekend trip we made were without a hotel reservation. Sometimes we landed in to trouble but most of the times we were able to find good hotels at relatively low rates when we walk in and ask for room rates. We returned to Mysore town from Brindavan and I started driving around looking for hotel. I stopped in front of a 3-Star hotel but they did not have any room available. Once I got in to the car after enquiring availability in the hotel, someone came in a scooter and knocked on the car. I drove away quickly since I didn't know his intentions. But he kept following us and started shouting and waving his hands. Finally I stopped the car in a crowded area and asked what he wants. Then he explained that he can help us get a hotel room at low rates in the available vacant rooms. After negotiating the rates, he took us to a hotel called "Adhi Manor" where he arranged an A/c room for us at a rent about 40%!o(MISSING)f their published rates.

Hotel Adhi Manor: The hotel was pathetic. Very poor quality rooms, lot of bugs around and not even the reception looked good. The bed was very old. Based on our request, they moved us to another room but that was no different. Next morning, the first thing I did was to find another hotel for the rest of our stay in Mysore.

Hotel Palace Plaza: After visiting couple of hotels, I found Hotel Palace Plaza, which turned out to be an excellent place for stay in Mysore. Rent was bit high compared to the low rates we got in the previous hotel but the stay was very comfortable. Due to the bad experience previous night, we did not had much expectations, but we all loved the new place. They have a restaurant called "Dynasty", which served very tasty food for us, looked very clean and have very friendly staff. I have written a bit more on the best restaurants in Mysore.

Mysore Zoo - the best attraction in Mysore

After a tasty breakfast at Dynasty, we visited Mysore Zoo. We spent about 3 hours in the zoo but the kids were very tired after walking all the way within the zoo. We somehow wanted to get out of the place, but even though tired, kids wanted to see all animals. The zoo was pretty crowded but since it is a huge area, the crowd did not make it uncomfortable. After seeing hundreds of animals, we exited the zoo and drove back to the hotel for a short break.

Keeping the taste of breakfast in mind, we returned the Dynasty restaurant in Hotel Mysore Palace for lunch and ordered some Chinese food. They served the hot food in the room. Not sure if it was because we were all hungry and tired, but we felt it was one of the best food we had recently!

Horse Safari

After lunch, we took a small nap and then came out of the room. We saw many horse safaris near the temple. We negotiated with couple of people and finally came down the rate from Rs 500 to Rs 250 for a 20 minute ride. (Later, we met other people who offer the same ride for Rs 75). During the 20 minute ride, they offered us to take to a great market place in Mysore were we can shop as long as we want and he will wait outside for us. And he said this was a courtesy to the visitors to Mysore, but it was cheating. He took us to a textile showroom were we ended up spending lot of money (our fault) and later realized the horse safari people took us there to get commission for the items we purchased.

After the safari and shopping, we returned to the hotel, took a shower, changed the dress and then started looking around for places for dinner. Even though we loved the food at the restaurant in the hotel, we decided to try something else for dinner. We had heard about the theme restaurant at Hotel Pai Vista, which was walking distance from our hotel. The restaurant looked very interesting. It was made with the theme of a jungle/forest. The waiters were dressed like hunters and they had lot artificial animals or stuffed animals everywhere in the restaurant. Food was bit expensive but was tasty. Kids enjoyed watching the animals and messing with the hunters!

Mysore Palace - the historical monument in Mysore

Mysore Palace is the giant palace of the Kings, which attractions millions of domestic and foreign visitors every year. Photography is not allowed inside the palace but you can take pictures outside the buildings. It will take about 1 to 2 hours to see and enjoy the palace. You can rent automated voice guide system which will give detailed history of each important buildings and rooms in the palace.

Shopping in Mysore

Mysore is a great place for shopping silk items and Sandal products. However, be aware of lot of fraud referrals. Taxi driver, auto rickshaw driver, travel guides - almost anyone you meet would refer you to some of the "best market" that is offering some "special deals" "only on that day"! We fell into that trap multiple times and ended up wasting lot of money in various shops. For example, a tourist guide who offered to take us to many attractions like Sandalwood factory at a very nominal fee of Rs 40. We drove all the way with him just to see a small shop, which claimed is the factory. We were expecting a huge factory where they cut big trees and make various things from Sandalwood, but disappointed to see a small shop which wasn't worth the drive at all. Moreover, the guide had said the factory is open only on Tuesdays for visitors but we learnt from the shop that it is open for all any day.

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[Mukesh Negi]

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