So on Saturday two of my colleagues and I went to Mysore with Naga, our driver. Now Naga’s native is Mysore so we all had quite the experience – one that never would have happened if someone else had been driving.
But before I start with the day’s events I must share a very funny story illustrating the six degrees of separation theory. As we were driving along Billie began telling a tale of how she was in the airport several months ago and heard two Western women discussing their experience of being with a driver out on the country roads when all of sudden he hit a goat. Out of nowhere people began swarming the car. Needless to say the women were terrified and had no idea what was going on as the driver and the villagers were talking rapidly in their native tongue. Finally the driver told the women they needed to give the villagers 50 rupees. Alas the women only had 100’s and higher. They gladly gave the driver the 100 rupees and thought they could be on their merry way. But no – there they were sitting in the car still terrified surrounded by some villagers. Finally after some time the villagers came back with change for the 100 rupees and the women and their driver could resume their journey. Well by now I’m sure you have guessed their driver was Naga. As Billie was telling the story Naga chimed in and said yes that was him and the incident took place back in September. We asked to please not hit any goats or other livestock with us in the car.
Mysore is a 3 hour drive from Banaglore so we started the day nice and early – around 7:30am. The first stop was approximately 10 miles outside Mysore at Sriangapatnam – now try and say that even once let alone 10 times. This is where the Sultan Tipu’s Summer Palace is situated. And he really needed that Summer Palace because he defended his territory in FOUR wars against the Brits. Must have been exhausting.
You can’t take pictures of anything inside which is really where all the incredible workmanship is visible. But to me the best part was walking around the grounds and seeing the monkeys. I was so excited and immediately whipped out my camera and started snapping pictures. Two things happened – first I got a little too close to one monkey and he didn’t like it and started coming towards me and it wasn’t to shake my hand. Naga started laughing as I started moving very quickly back towards him. Second, my camera dies – well not my camera exactly just the battery. I was so upset but thank goodness for my colleague Billie who nicely shared her camera with me for the rest of our journey. The pictures will be uploaded on Tuesday.
From the Summer Palace the next stop was at the Sultan’s mosque. There were quite a few of his family buried there as well. Every day they put fresh flowers and beautiful, colorful fabric on the tombs. Needless to say pictures were not allowed there either.
Next stop was a Krishna temple in the middle of a sugar cane field. When I get the pictures uploaded on Tuesday there will be one of a man cutting cane with a machete. Anyway we went to this temple which was beautiful, colorful and very peaceful. And let me tell you after the constant assault on your senses in this most unique country I can understand why one would want to seek sanctuary. I also learned that every temple has an ashram because an ashram is where the servants of God live. Every temple needs at least one person to take care of it so there will always be an ashram at every temple.
We left the Krishna temple and went into the town of Mysore. Naga left us in Mysore and went to visit his grandmother and his brother Ragu took over the driving. He was a very good driver but his English was not as good as Naga’s so half the time we had no idea what he saying.
Mysore Palace was the next stop. The second we got out of the car we had a non-stop stream of people selling crap trying to get us to buy and let me tell you these people don’t take no for an answer. After a certain point you just stop trying to be polite and saying no thank you because they don’t understand the meaning. And then you have to go past stalls of people selling things before you get to the ticket booth to get into the Palace.
The palace was really incredible. It was huge and the woodwork was amazing. It took over 15 years to build this palace. One of the truly remarkable pieces I saw was the gold Royal Elephant throne. Since Billie had already been to the Palace she stayed outside and Sergei, Ragu and I walked through. When the sun goes down they light up the Palace at night with 90,000 lightbulbs that come on simultaneously. I can only imagine what a sight that must be.
Then we stopped for lunch at an Indian restaurant. Needless to say I wouldn’t eat anything. Thank god I had my Pure Protein bars with me.
Our next stop was my favorite. We went to the zoo. And since the zoos in India don’t have the same standards we have in terms of the size of the moats or the height of the walls you had a really good view of the animals. Again, the pictures will be uploaded on Tuesday. I was surprised at how nice the zoo was – it certainly was a lot nicer than the one in San Francisco. They had the usual suspects – giraffes, elephants, bears, tigers, cheetah, lion but they also had an amazing assortment of birds and the biggest python I’ve ever seen. It must have been at least 30-40 yards long and weighed at least 60 pounds.
Finally we were off to a museum – I can’t remember the name –there was some paintings and some furniture but outside the museum were some “antique-y” type stores. Billie and I were browsing around and I came across a painting that I really liked. It was of Hanuman – the monkey faced god. When he was born he was very, very hungry and his mother did not have enough food to satisfy his hunger so he took off for the Sun thinking it was a fruit. But Indra hurled his weapon at Hanuman and struck him in the jaw which he how got his monkey face.
By this time it was after 6pm and I was tired and just wanted to go back to the hotel. Not too mention I had to go to the bathroom and after experiencing the bathroom at the Palace which was a hole in the ground (thank god I thought to bring some toilet paper with me) I really wanted someplace that had a toilet. So anyway, we all wanted to go back and told Ragu we wanted to go back to Bangalore and he essentially said we had to go to the Brindhaven Gardens. Well since he didn’t really speak English we had no idea where he wanted to take us but we said what the heck. So off we went to these gardens. By the time we got there is was dark but there were thousands of people. One person in particular stood out because as it turned out he was the tallest man in Mysore – over 7 feet tall. And Ragu told us the 7 foot tall man was married to the shortest woman. Anyway apparently this spot is very popular because at night they have a big light show. We walked for about five minutes and told him we wanted to leave and go back to Bangalore.
Now Ragu was not going to drive us back. We had to get Naga which meant going to his house. By this time it was pitch dark outside and if Sergei was not with us Billie and I would have been very uncomfortable as women are not out after dark in India. Not too mention we were in the midst of a poor Muslim neighborhood. There were men everywhere – the streets were pretty packed – but no women. Anyway we get to Naga’s (he is Hindi)house and he introduces us to his family and has us sit down in what I presume was the living room. It was totally surreal. I was trying to be social because I did not want to insult his hospitality but we had like 6 people staring at us and didn’t really know what to say. His sister brought out glasses of Sprite and asked us if we wanted anything to eat which we declined. Then they wanted us to spend the night but that wasn’t going to happen. And here I am dying to go to the bathroom and we’ve got a three hour trip ahead of us. His sister asked me if I wanted to get fresh – meaning did I want to wash up – so thinking that Naga has a pretty good business and it looked like what could be construed as a middle class house I said sure. She showed me the bathroom – well I think it was the bathroom – god only knows – washed down the floor – I don’t even want to think about that – and turned on the faucet. Did I mention the faucet came directly out of the wall – it was like something we would attach a hose to. Anyway, I got out of there as quickly as possible. Now Naga has a temple next door to house so we went to the temple. It was pretty nice and he told me that anyone could come to the temple to pray – it wasn’t just for his family. I asked what was the red stuff in this little pot was and I was told that it was what they put on their heads and YES JULIAN they put a dot on my forehead!!!! Finally Naga said it was time to leave and back we came to Bangalore. I didn’t walk into my hotel room until 11:30pm totally exhausted.
Today I spent at the pool and made a decision regarding where I would stay for the next four months. Well it depends on what I can negotiate with the hotel but I like it here. The pool is really peaceful and I don’t want to travel every weekend – it would be exhausting. They have a great gym. I like the Galleria next door. If I can get the price down another $100 per night and have the internet included I’m going to stay here. So tomorrow I negotiate – let’s see how it goes.
