Blogs from Mysore, Karnataka, India, Asia - page 2

Geo: 12.314, 76.6759 After yet another overnight train ride, this time returning to Mysore from Hampi, we arrived at our hotel (Parklane) and were able to check-in immediately upon arrival at about 9:30am. What a relief! Our room, an air conditioned refuge, was huge with a balcony that we didn't use because it overlooked the quintessentially noisy, busy, dirty street. Jim and I don't typically like cities so we keep our stops short such as this one for three nights. It was Republic Day in India - a big holiday - so the Mysore Palace a short block away was to be lit with its 100,000 lights. We sauntered over before it was dark joined by the throngs of other tourists and locals to view this spectacular sight.The air was alive with celebration and anticipation as ... read more

I write this blog to help me remember things and to keep my friends and family updated on what I'm doing. I write a lot of chatty stuff so it's best if you know me (my friends say they like the chatting because it reminds me of how I talk... which I'm not sure is a good thing!) but anyone interested enough is welcome. Friday 23 April Friday evening we watched Slumdog Millionaire (can relate to it a bit more from here) which reminded me to write about the TV censorship. It’s pretty strict. There are some words that are ok… some that are not ok for example if the f word is used it’s muted out, if the s**t word is used the English subtitles on the screen (always present, even when the TV is ... read more

Dear All Greetings from Mysore, in the Indian state of Karnataka. Just arrived here a few hours ago, and other than saying this just seems so far the most comfortable, swankiest hotel I’ve stayed in so far, I will save writing about my time here until my next. The reason is I think there is plenty to relate already about these last few days, and I will add my afternoon in Mysore on to my next blog entry. So last up, I believe I had just arrived in Ooty, at the most unusual Mount View Heritage Hotel, wonderful faded colonial grandeur with absolutely zippo on the service-front. It’s a shame, as I think they could do so much for the place if they spruced it up a bit and added a few friendly faces, what with ... read more

HE SAID... We left Mudumalai National Park at 10.30am and continued our northward journey, this time heading for Mysore. India is often termed the “land of the farmer”, and we could easily see why as we drove through vast expanses of agricultural land of cotton, palm trees, bananas, sugar cane and rice. Every so often we’d drive through a tiny village, but most of the time the rural landscape stretched to the horizon. Slow agricultural machinery, trucks and farm animals were sharing very narrow roads with speeding buses, motorbikes and cars – which equated to very dangerous driving conditions. We came across an accident between a bus and a car, but it didn’t appear that anyone was injured. We dropped into the Chamundi Hill Temple on our way into Mysore. We wandered through the popular and ... read more

Day 8 We had a relaxed morning this morning; waking up naturally, which was a refreshing change! Although we were awoken in the night by a random phone call. I answered it half asleep. It was all in Indian, I just kept replying that I didn't understand, but he continued to rabble on. Very frustrating, T found it very funny! lol We packed our bags ready to move on again. We met with Kate and Nicola for our final breakfast before parting our ways. It was a hearty English breakfast this morning, well, as English as it gets in India! Cereal, fruit, toast with jam and tea. We set of for Bangalore, which is abut 150k. We have a couple of stops on the way. The first stop was after only 10 minutes whilst still in ... read more