Blogs from Karnataka, India, Asia - page 18

We lingered in the comfort and luxury of the Falaknuma for as long as we could this morning, but eventually it was time to say goodbye and set off on the second half of our journey. Our new driver was waiting for us, in an identical Toyota Innova people carrier to the last one. After a slight hiccup when he took the wrong road, we were soon on the highway for a mere 3 hour drive to Bidar. We have just one night here, partly because it would have been a very long journey to our next destination if we’d driven direct from Hyderabad, and partly to see the fort. Luckily the driver knew his way round the fort. You enter through the 14th century city walls, which are about 10km long and encircle a ... read more

Right, a bit of a preamble: I actually wrote the bulk of this about two weeks ago, and had thought about rewriting it, but decided to leave it the same but add some postscript so this text and the pictures might be a bit disjointed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello everyone, as always I hope you are all well. A fairly short entry this time round, not to say that stuff hasn’t happened, because it has, but it is just not quite as much stuff as on previous posts. Or, let me flip that a bit. I have been suspecting for sometime that things that would have filled me with novelty on the previous trip are now pretty much matter of course and so I don’t report on them. I remember on my last trip I would report on ... read more

.....this is what lonely planet says about Mysore. Well, we are not really LP-fans - but this is certainly true. Mysore has everything South India is made of: tempels, pujas, lovely food, hot weather, friendly people, colonial buildings, honking, crazy markets, yoga, all kinds of smells and colours and, a highlight for us (after a long time without): nice cold local beer. This city is a feast for all sins. But come prepared and be ready to dive into this world - otherwise it will makes you crazy. We were thinking a lot about going to Mysore. The last travelblogs about this city were not really enthusiastic. But in Wayanad, we spoke to so many people who simply loved their time in Mysore that we finally decided to check it out. And did we regret coming ... read more

The road down the mountain towards Mysore was rough and rugged but travelled through National reserves so we were entertained with flocks of pretty spotted deer, a baby elephant being washed in a stream and a group of very cute black faced monkeys who had decided to come down to the road to watch the humans and play a game of chicken on the road. They observed us as much as we observed them. The road became much better once we hit the flats and we motored quickly to Mysore, pausing once to admire the pelican elegantly fishing in a lake and a group of pelicans nesting up in the trees. Once we arrived in Mysore we headed directly to the palace. The place was teeming with tourists and we learned from Antony that it was ... read more

We got up to head to our final Indian destination- Bangalore. On the way we visited a summer palace. It was gorgeous, still original, fading and pitted in parts but still lovely. It was much smaller and housed a lot of history; finely worked aquatints from the 18 the century, a number of portraits of the ruling family by Thomas Hickey. These were very simple but expressive and sympathetic to the individuals. Weaponry, fresco paintings and explanations gave the history of the battles against the British. We arrived in Bangalore at our hotel. It was grotty!! That was it, we decided we would like a decent hotel before we left India so we talked to a local who recommended the Oberoi. We packed our bags back into the van ( much to the consternation of the ... read more