Advertisement
We arrived in Mysore at 6pm on Monday evening after the 550km drive from Mamallapuram took longer than expected. We hoped to get here around 7 hours after setting off. In the end, it took us more like 10 hours. While the main roads between Chennai and Mysore were of a far better quality than I had expected, the delay was mainly caused by a very long wait at a railway crossing, as well as bad traffic around Bangalore. The scenery on the way was spectacular: some interesting rock formations as well as palm trees as far as the eye could see. At least we had finished our travelling for the day though. Our poor driver had to drive all the way back to Mamallapuram in his Ambassador car that night. Unfortunately, we couldn't relax just yet: the hotel we had booked wanted to charge us more than had been agreed earlier by phone, and wanted to give us a double bed instead of the agreed separate beds. No way! After a long and heated debate with the receptionist, we finally were given a good room and could relax the rest of the evening.
Tuesday was Phil's 25th birthday. While
we wanted to have a relaxing day to celebrate, the morning started off with yet more planning for our trip around India, and a visit to the Railway Reservation Office (See below). In the afternoon we had a better time though, visiting the palace in which the maharajas of Mysore used to reside until India's independence in 1947. While the exterior of the palace clearly shows off the grandeur of the maharajas lives, nothing could have prepared me for the interior: the design of the rooms was over the top and borderline vulgar. It was definitely worth a visit though and proved that money clearly can't buy good taste.
Following our visit to the palace we decided to take a rickshaw to the top of Chamundi Hill which would hopefully give us nice views of Mysore and the surrounding countryside. We found a driver who was willing to make the trip to the top, wait there, and then take us back to the city. While the drive started well, the ascend up the steep hill was slow. At least we were still moving though... At about 3km from the summit, the engine finally gave in. The rickshaw ground to
a halt to the sound of some spectacular noises coming from the engine in the back. Whatever the driver tried, it was clear that a mechanic would be needed to fix the problem. We decided to start walking up the hill, and paid the driver of the rickshaw the full agreed fare plus a good tip. The poor guy would probably have to spend a considerable amount of money on fixing his engine. After walking for about 15 mins, we managed to hail down a bus which was going to the summit. The views from the hill were nice, but not spectacular. We had quickly had enough and caught a bus back to our hotel to freshen up.
In the evening, I invited Phil to the restaurant of the Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel, according to the Lonely Planet "the city's grandest dining experience" to celebrate his birthday. Housed in a splendid former maharaja's palace 7 km east of the city, it was certainly an interesting experience. After a nice meal in the restaurant, we drank coffee and played snooker in the hotel bar, and for a moment or two I almost felt like a guest of the maharaja in
colonial times.
Today, we have so far taken things easy while we prepare to take a bus to Ooty in the afternoon. Ooty is a hill station at 2240m and the drive there should provide some nice scenery. We'll stay there for 2 days before moving on to Kochi.
After describing my annoyance with India's railway system in the previous post, I finally have some good news now: it turns out that many trains have a "foreign tourist quota" - several seats which can only be booked by tourists. These seats can however not be booked in every railway office, and for example where not bookable in Mamallapuram. As luck would have it though, we managed to book tickets for pretty much every journey we need here in Mysore. In my eyes, the railway system still is overburdened and rubbish for the local population, but being tourists we managed to get seats on otherwise fully booked trains. It took 4 visits to the reservation office here and about 3 hours spent waiting, but in the end it was worth it! Therefore, our plans for India have now become more final: we will travel from Ooty to Kochi, via
Coimbatore. From Kochi we might make a trip to the Keralan backwaters, or alternatively to Munnar. From Kochi we will travel to Goa and Mumbai, and the tickets have been booked!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 15; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0309s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Pim
non-member comment
So jealous right now
First, wish Phil a happy birthday for me, please. God, I am sooo jealous of you right now, just reading all the travel journals, I wish I could be there with you. It's bringing back a lot of memories from when we went with the three of us. Can't I fly out for two or three weeks and forget about the fact that I am in the final exams period?