Mysore

At the end of week 2, the entire batch took a day trip out to historic Mysore. Although only 90 miles from Bangalore, the journey can take upwards of 3 hours. The roads get crowded in the city and it seems that every 100 yards there is a ghastly speed bump. Imagine what a comfortable ride that was!

Our first stop was for breakfast and snacks at Cafe Coffee Day, India's Starbucks equivalent. Then we made a quick stop at the site where King Tippu's body was discovered:

Onward to the temple, Srirangapatanam. Say that 5 times fast.  We could only take photos outside.

These monkeys were up to no good:

For only 100 rupees, this man played tour guide for our group:

Detail of the temple:

Inside the temple, we got dotted:

Fresh coconut juice:

This was Tippu Sultan's summer palace. Indians paid a 5 rupee entry fee. Foreigners paid 100 rupees. What is wrong with that picture? At any rate, this was not worth the entry fee!

We had lunch in Mysore and I had to take a photo of the menu. What exactly is Chilli Mutton Liquid? Needless to say, I did not order that!

After lunch we went to the Palace at Mysore which was very nice. We even got free audio guides. Cameras were strictly prohibited (or risk getting extorted for money) so no photos. :(

We thought that was the end of the day and we'd head back to Bangalore, but we did a detour out to KRS dam. By the time we arrived it was dark and the dam was closed to visitors, so we saw it from afar before the long drive home. We took 2 quick beer stops and 1 dinner stop at McDonald's, yet we didn't get home until after midnight. By my count, that was nearly 5 hours!!

I was glad we went, but it really wasn't as cool as the guidebook made it sound. And I was so tired that I was happy to sleep on my hard bed back at the guest house! Even happier that we finally got data cards for our laptops and I could email B.