Before arriving in Mysore we had read that the local government ran a day tour around the city for a very reasonable price, so we decided it was something we should do. We located the office and bought our tickets for our air-conditioned coach a couple of days in advance.
On the appointed morning, we made our way back to the office for our 8.15 am pick-up, only to be told that, as we were the only people who had booked, they wouldn’t be running the trip. We were asked to wait until 8.30 to see if they could organise an alternative for us. A few minutes later, two elderly Indian ladies came in. They wanted to go on the trip, too. They joined us in our wait. At around 8.45 am, we were suddenly told that there was a bus and it was leaving right now, but it didn’t have air-conditioning, so we would get over half of our money back. No worries! So, we boarded the coach, which was already almost full, and were allocated the two front seats. All of the seats were in a near-prone position and couldn’t be adjusted. They were most uncomfortable, but we decided to make the best of it. So began our mad, crazy, Indian day out!!
Our first stop was at Jaganmohan Palace which houses the Jaychamarajendra Art Gallery. The palace itself was built in 1861 as the royal auditorium. From the outside, it looks magnificent, but inside it’s a story of decay and sorry attempts at restoration. The third floor and part of the ground floor were closed during our visit as they resembled building sites. The exhibits that were on display were dusty and had definitely seen better days. It was, however, interesting to see many works by noted Indian artist, Raji Rava Varma.
From there, we were taken to a sari and souvenir shop – thankfully, the only one of the day. Mark and I were quickly in and out without buying anything, but several of our Indian fellow passengers emerged with bagfuls of tat!
Our next stop was at Mysore Zoo. This would not normally be on our list of things to do, but it was part of the itinerary so we went along with it. To be fair, the zoo conforms to very high standards. It had only reopened a few days before our visit following extensive refurbishment. Some work was still going on. In comparison to some other pitiful zoos we’ve seen (both in Asia and in other parts of the world), this was very well done. It is set in well-established gardens which were first laid out in 1892. The animals housed here are all rescue animals – none have been taken from the wild. The enclosures are all large and well-maintained. Most importantly, the zoo tries to educate local people and visitors about conservation and the importance of animals to all our lives.
We were told to be back at our pick-up point after our zoo visit at 12.15 pm. We were all there in the blazing sun, but had to wait until 12.35 for our guide to appear and tell us that we had a 15-minute walk to where our bus was waiting for us!
We were then taken to the top of Chamundi Hill where the Sri Chamundeswari Temple is. The hill is 1062 metres tall and affords good views of Mysore. Unfortunately, we only got glimpses of these from a moving bus! At the top, we were dropped off and told that we had to be back on the bus in 30 minutes. This wouldn’t give us enough time to actually go into the temple, but we could go and have a look! Some of us did, including a solo Nepalese tourist who was intent on visiting the temple properly. He rushed up to the ticket office, bought his ticket and went off to join the long queue to get in. Sadly, he didn’t make it back to the bus in time and we left without him! He must have made his own way back down the hill, though, because he rejoined us on the bus later in the day! Those of us who just went to have a look at the outside of the temple were disappointed to find it covered in scaffolding, so the photos weren’t great. We were fascinated, though, to watch the hundreds of pilgrims in their best clothes and no shoes coming up the hill to pray at the temple.
As we made our way back to the bus, we realised that most of our party had only made it as far as the many ‘tat’ stalls lining the route up to the temple!
On our way back to the city centre, we stopped to look at a five metre long statue of Nandi (Shiva’s bull) which had been carved out of solid rock in 1659. There was no opportunity to get off the bus, so we only glimpsed it and didn’t get the chance to take photos.
Once we arrived back in town, we were taken to the Hotel Roopa for a 30-minute lunch stop. We were directed into the unlicensed family restaurant downstairs, rather than the rooftop where we’d been before. We then became aware that the next stop would be Mysore Palace (the trip we had booked originally didn’t include the palace). We asked the guide what we could do and he suggested that we leave the group and meet up with them again at the next stop – 4.25 pm at St. Philomena’s Church. This suited us just fine, so we left the Hotel Roopa and went, instead, to the Parklane Hotel where we had a very enjoyable, leisurely lunch washed down with ice-cold beer!
After lunch, we took a tuk-tuk up to the church and had a good look around before rejoining our group on the bus for the remainder of the tour. The church is massive, built in the neo-Gothic style between 1933 and 1941. The interior is undergoing restoration and has been completely stripped. It resembled a building site! Down in the crypt, we were faced with the bizarre sight of a Christian tomb and statue of the Virgin Mary decorated with multi-coloured fairy lights! Holy shrine meets Indian kitsch! There was also a long tunnel with walls covered in stones inscribed with the names of people who donated money when the church was being built. At first, we didn’t understand the signs telling people not to write on the walls – until we realised that every surface was covered in closely-written grafitti!!
Next to the church was St. Mary’s School. It was home time and it was nice to see many Muslim mums picking up their children from this Catholic school. It was also fascinating to watch how many kids can fit into one tuk-tuk for the ride home – I think the most we counted was 11, with all of their backpacks knotted around the grab bars!!
Back on the bus, we drove out of the city to the fort town of Srirangapatnam. The tour itinerary included the fort, Tipu’s summer palace, Daria Daulat Bagh, and the Sri Ranganthaswamy Temple, all of which warranted reasonable write-ups in my Lonely Planet guidebook. Our guide explained a little about what we were seeing and even paused the bus once or twice so we could take photos, but it wasn’t until we were driving out of the town that it dawned on us that we weren’t actually stopping!! Most of our fellow passengers didn’t seem bothered, but one or two voiced their disappointment. One of the elderly ladies who’d got on with us in the morning was particularly vociferous, saying that we’d been tricked and that we’d missed seeing one of the most important temples in India!
Her protests fell on deaf ears, though, and we drove on for another 45 minutes to Brindaven Gardens and the Krishnaraja Sagar Dam, a 38 metre high, 1.6 km long concrete structure built to harness the power of the Kaverii River. This is where things got very surreal! We were here, apparently, to see one of the 5-minute ‘dancing water’ shows staged every half an hour in the north garden. The coach and car parks were packed! There were thousands and thousands of Indians here to witness the spectacle. Our guide went off to buy our group entrance ticket and then we were pushed and shoved through the funnel-type entrance into the park. It was crazy!! By now, the sun had gone down, but in the half-light we could see that the gardens and fountains were probably very beautiful and the place might be a pleasant place to walk around in the daytime. Now, however, it was rammed with people and wasn’t a particularly good experience at all!
We were told that the sound and light show we should see would start at 7pm so, along with thousands of others, we crossed the reservoir to see it. We walked rather than take one of the dodgy-looking boats! On the other side, we embraced the party atmosphere and bought an ice-cream to eat whilst finding a spot amongst the excited crowd to watch the show. All of the seats had been taken, so it was standing room only. For us, the short and sweet sound and light show centred on one small fountain, was something of an anti-climax. To the predominantly Indian crowd, however, who cheered and whooped all the way through, it was obviously the best thing they’d ever seen! I paused for a moment to wonder whether there was ever a time when we would have been so impressed over such an ordinary display. I decided there wasn’t!!
Once the show was over, we joined the throng to cross back over the reservoir in the pitch dark. We bypassed all the stalls selling tat and tandoori fish and made our way back to the bus. From our seats on board, we had the perfect vantage point to watch hundreds of other coaches leaving the carpark for their journeys home. Loud music was blasting from every one of them and they were full of people dancing in the aisles and waving their neon-lit souvenirs!
We were due to leave Brindaven at 8pm, but it was 8.30 by the time we set off. Our guide made sure he’d sold every spare seat and patch of floor on the bus to revellers wanting to get back to the city! So, it was 10pm by the time we got dropped off near our hotel. We were completely knackered! The cost of the whole day for the two of us, excluding lunch? – 750 rupees or about nine pounds thirty!
Sometimes it’s good to see the sites as local tourists do – it gives you a whole new perspective!!
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