Mysore Trip

A weekend, a bike, 2 guys with the enthu and a place to go to is all it took to make a trip to mysore. Early morning 4.30am on 12th march, manish and i pulled ourselves out of our beds. The plan was to travel in the morning cool and be in mysore, about 150kms from our home, by 9.00 am. And so we did, despite the thunder, lightning and rains that lashed bangalore the previous night at around 10pm.

We set off with gam's address (my pal who is working at the nanjagod plant of nestle india and staying in the nestle chummery in mysore) at 5.30am from our kodihalli home. by 6.30 we realized that we were on the wrong road out of bangalore, and this one headed to coimbatore. we were just about 8kms away from the wrong turn we took. backtracking our steps (wheels mebbe), we then found our way to the "actual" mysore bound road.

now this road, for the past 4 years or more is being converted from 2 lane to a 4 lane thing. and these guys seem to have found the smartest way to do so...every 10 odd kms, the laning work has been done alternately on the left and right of the entire stretch. The travel therefore, wasn't all that rosy, what with those wretched speed breakers dotting each such small patch!!

by 9.30 am we were in gam's chummery!! that dude had given us very good directions to reach his home. after settling down, having breakfast, and gam having bathed, we started off sightseeing.

the first place was ofcourse the Wadiyar's palace of mysore. built magnificiently over a huge area in the heart of the city, this palace is made entirely of granite rock of 3-4 varieties. the tourism deptt. had properly organized the movement of sightseers like us and a path was marked out to cover all parts of the multistoreyed palace. from the household pottery, furniture, clothing being used by the royal family, the rooms they lived and used, to the magnificient stands on the front side where the raja and his durbaris must've once sat to view festival proceedings, we saw it all. all barefoot!! no footwear is allowed inside here!!

our next stop was the mysore zoo. many would say, what were 3 guys, in their early 20s doing at a zoo on a bright sunny weekend afternoon!! but the mysore zoo does offer an exquisite collection of animals not normally seen in other zoos. giraffes, gorillas (only zoo in india to house one), zebras, the majestic white tiger and other wild cats (reminded me of NITIE campus) are only to name a few. birds of variety of kinds (to kindle manish's n my old hobby of ornithology) and reptiles simply added to the fun.

by now it was 3 in the afternoon. gam and manish had lunch at pizza corner (i skipped it due to a heavy brunch) and then we repaired to gam's chummery for a siesta. by 5.30 pm, we looked set to take in another splendid sight, the brindavan gardens, built right next to the krishnasagar dam on the cauvery! we reached there by city bus just in time, at 7.00 pm and spent about 1.5hours taking in its colourful and wet glory!! unfortunately, the road to the top of the dam closes for tourists at 7.00 and we cudn't be up there. a variety of fountains, waterfalls, and a muscial fountain made our evening complete.

dinner at a quiet hotel and then a much wanted sleep on gam's bed (he was kind enough to sleep on the floor) made up for all the hard work. 13th march, morning 10 am we thanked gam for his hospitality (breakfast that morning consisted of maggi and bread at home) and moved to my MREC pal's place. joydeep works for infy at the mysore campus. an hour well spent regaling old college days, we set off on our return journey.

but with a halt at tipu sultan's srirangapatna...which included the old ranganathaswamy temple (where tipu, a muslim ruler used to worship!!), couple of dungeons, a jumma masjid, an obelisk marking the triumph of the british forces over tipu's fort, tipu's place of death, as well as the gol gumbaz and the sangam of the cauvery and lokpavani rivers completed this halt.

by afternoon 4pm we were back home, resting our hurt bodies (travelling on bike is a little taxing on the backsides!!) and glad that the weekend was rather well spent. javed was home, and the only comment he passed was that both of us were looking like "khaapris" (thats negro in konkani). that night we had dinner to celebrate prasanna's and namita's b'days....

thats it for now folks....
tell u some other story some other time!!