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Published: April 26th 2010
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palace from courtyard The funny part about planning a route through unfamiliar territory is that you really don't understand it at all. Jenna and I plan our travel route about a 2 weeks to a week in advance and have a reliable travel guide but sometimes we find that we makes plans to go between cities and areas where there isn't established transit.
On a map we eyed out a pleasent coastal route to 2 of the major spots we wanted to visit, Ooty, and Ernakulam. When we went to book train and bus tickets we realized that there was no way to go the route we envisioned. Even though there are train tracks and highways on a map there just wasn't a way to connect the dots. We ended up having to turn inland... WAY inland to the mega-trendy transit hub (and birthplace of Hotmail) Bangaluru. We had not planed to go here as it is full of Information technology colleges and yuppies and is expensive. Despite the change in plans we had a great time. B-luru is the greenest and least disgusting large indian city we have visited yet full of very nice people. Also Jenna found a place to buy
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and from afar nice silk yarn at a fraction of what it would cost in Canada. I really was not fond of the idea of going to B-luru but it worked out nicely and we have to just go with the flow anyways.
Mysore is one of the biggest tourist draws in India and we caught the end of high season. Quite bustling with domestic and foreign tourists and just plain noisy as all hell but there are some great spots here. Mysore palace is one of the most ornate and amazing buildings i have been inside ever. It was forbidden to take pictures which is a shame but just to stroll around was breathtaking... and i don't even like bourgeoisy crap like that. Ours jaws were dropped in awe our whole time inside the palace. One thing we have come to dislike is domestic tourists. The end of foreign tourist season is when all the prices drop which is one of the reasons we chose this time to come here. This is when middle class indian families pack into buses and trains and check out the marvels of their country. What gets to us is they never stop and look at
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yellow pheasant anything ever. No matter where we are the local tourists just sort of walk in large groups and don't actually take in their surroundings and are for the most part extremely loud with piles of screaming children with no respect for the time of early morning or late night that they make lots of noise. It is a small annoyance to be able to visit this place and take part in its heritage but the noise of the tour groups grates on us.
To get away from the noise we visited the bird and butterfly sanctuary which was very peaceful. There was a 90 acre area with a large pond alive with scores of different wildlife. There weren't many butterflies but we got to witness families of storks and pelican swooping in on the lake for a meal and come close to peacocks, horn bills, pheasants and swans. It was the perfect reprieve from tourists and traffic. The other stop we made was the Mysore Rail Museum. If you know Jenna and i well you know we love trains (esp jenna). This rail museum was small but awesome. There were steam locomotives, first class cars from the late 1800's,
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peacock looming above and all sorts of engines. There was also a gallery with the full history of the rail line. Best Date Ever! (for train nerds)
We stayed only a couple days in each city then moved on to our original destination, Ooty. A far cry from the coast it sits at 2340m above sea level in the heart of the Nilgiri mountain range. The air is apparently cool and clean and the drive there proves to be bumpy with lots of turns as we scale the hills.
singing off for now
Brian and Jenna
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Dean
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Great Train Photos
Looks like the train museum was a great visiting place and the butterfly/bird place looked beautiful too from the few photos you had time to share. (Our holiday too is moving to unexpected places...)