Mysore, Karnataka, India (by Mel)

Namaskara (Hello in Kannada),
We are in a new state in India. We are in Mysore (officially Mysuru) in the southern state of Karnataka. The main language is Kannada (in Kerala it was Malayalam). I thought that Hindi was the main language in India, I could not be further than the truth. India has around 200 languages spoken. Some people also speak Hindi, but not everyone. Some also speak English, but not everyone either! We like learning the basic in the language of the country we are, but here, when we just get the hang on how to say Hello, we go to another state and we need to learn a new one!
Anyway, to go from Alleppey to Mysore, we took our first Indian train, and even better, our first Indian night train. I was apprehensive, as I’ve read some bad stories about train in India, but you know what? It was easy as! We got to the train station early (because I am always early everywhere), check that the train wasn’t cancelled (just in case), and where the wagon was going to be on the station, as you only have a few minutes to get in, so no time to run the whole length of the train when it arrives. We waited a bit in a paid aircon waiting area (because it is hot, it is India after all!). When the train arrives, we were exactly where we were supposed to be, hop in the train, find our seats. Well it is not really seats, as it is a night train. There are 3 sleepers (a low, middle and top one). The top on is always open, the middle one is down during the day, so people can sit on the lower one. We had 2 middle and 2 top ones. After eating our dinner and agreeing with the couple that had the 2 lower sleepers that it was time to lay down, we just needed to lift up the middle bed, hang it from the top sleeper (I’m not sure how to explain that part) and we were ready for the night. The kids were in the 2 top ones, and they loved it. Kev and I were in the 2 middle ones. We got given bed shits, a pillow and a blanket, so got ourselves comfi, read a bit and after a little while got to sleep. I didn’t feel the train moving that much. Sometimes there was a bit of a rumble but not that much. A few people were snoring around, but honestly, the experience was so much better that I had imagine! We were on the train until 11am, when we finally arrived in Mysore.
Mysore seemed a bigger city than Alleppey, with a lot of cars and tuktuk driving crazily around! We got a taxi to our room, which got changed at the last minutes, for a bigger one at the same price: we got a 2 bedrooms appartement, which is great! One room for the kids, one for us, a living room and a small kitchen! This is luxury! We unpack and grab straight away a tuktuk to see the Palace. The current structure of the palace was constructed between 1897 and 1912, after the Old Palace burnt down, the current structure is also known as the New Fort. Mysore Palace is one of the most famous tourist attractions in India, after the Taj Mahal. This is the main attraction in Mysore. The palace is impressive from the outside. It is big, with arches, dome like roofs and colours. We got our tickets: tickets are almost more expansive for foreigner, we are used to it, but this time it is 8 time more! It is still cheaper than Australian prices obviously, but still. Kids are fee, that helped! The palace is huge and the rooms are impressive: big, almost princessy castle feeling! The down side was that, plenty of area were roped off: for example, the first massive room we got in, has a beautiful dome with painted glass, and it was not possible to get under the dome to really appreciate it. Several areas were like that, which was a bit sad. But we still enjoyed it.
One of the things we have a bit of trouble getting used to here, is the way people move in crowd: everyone push pass everyone, personal space is unknown, waiting to take your turn doesn’t seem to be a thing… This is a different way of doing thing and we feel a bit lost sometimes! Also as white people, we are a bit of an attraction in some places and we are often “asked” if people can take pictures with us: when I say ask, is more like someone stand next to us and says “picture?” with their phone already out ready to take the picture. We did say yes a few times, but if we feel like we don’t have a choice, it kinda rub us the wrong way and we say no, if they leave us the time, especially when the kids are involved. It is tricky to navigate. I know as a traveller, I take pictures: but I am trying to be a lot more responsible than I was before and if I take a picture of someone (as a close up), I make sure to ask before and wait for their answer. People are not commodities or monuments; they are people and they should have a choice about their image.
Anyway, after the visit, we went back to our place to have a quick shower and a rest (the night in the train was not completely restful), then we went back to the palace for the light show. I will be upfront; it was not the best! It is advertised as a light show, but it is more a sound with a few lights added. We pick the wrong day and the story told, was in Kannada (English was another day), but I thought, that’s ok, we will still enjoy the lights… Well nope: the show was around 50 minutes and only the last 5 minutes, the whole palace was illuminated with different coloured lights. The rest of the time, it was a light here and there. But well, we might try to go back on an English day if we find the time!
We have all heard about stories of cows walking around in India, but until now we didn’t see it that much. Here in Mysore, there are cows everywhere, walking in the middle of the traffic, laying down on the side of the road. We even saw one that just gave birth on a side road. Andrew is not super comfortable waking next to them. As he says: “I love observing the animals, but not from too close!”. Emma is more scared of the dogs, which are everywhere too, as we got barked at a few times when we were walking around. It makes our walks even more interesting!
The following day, the kids (but especially Andrew) were very excited as we went to the zoo, then an aquarium. I am not a big fan of zoo, but the kids have been wanted to see animals for a while, and I looked at some reviews of the Mysore Zoo and they were good…. I don’t believe reviews anymore: the zoo has a wide variety of animals for sure. It was good for that. But the condition the animals are kept in, are far from being ideal. Enclosures too small, no visible access to water (while it is very hot here), animal clearly depressed, trying to get back in their inside area, but all doors were closed, a lot of lonely animals included those who are known to be sociable like monkeys and such. And what top it up for me was the elephants: 3 of them at least, had chains on their legs, so they could not run, they could only take small steps. To sum up, if you are in Mysore, please DO NOT GO TO THE ZOO!!! This is not a good zoo. It got me very sad and guilty that I gave money to a place such as this. We decided as a family that we won’t go to zoo anymore and we will try to see animals in the wild where they belong.
Andrew being crazy about fish, we followed that visit with the Aquarium. It was better than the zoo, but just. Again, there was a good variety of fish, but some of the tanks felt a bit too small for the massive fish inside. I know less about fish behaviour than other animals, but still…It didn’t seem completely right to me. The kids enjoyed themselves and found a “pet” fish friend, that they called Dooby, that they follow around the tunnel for a bit and it was funny.
The next day was another type of experience. I’ve seen picture of a Hindu temple on top of a hill that looked really nice and I wanted to go and visit. We did. Took a tuktuk, he dropped us at the bottom of the hill, we had to go through a maze of small market type alley full of small stands selling everything and anything. A lot of people were there pushing their way pass. We wrestle our way following the crowd, assuming they were going to the temple. We arrive at the temple: it is called Sri Chamundeshwari Temple. It has a beautiful tower with a lot of statues representing diverse deities. We decided to go in, but maybe we shouldn’t have. It was overcrowded and you need to follow the line, a bit like in Disneyland with the rails on each side, and for some reason, we had to rush, everybody was rushing. We got 5 seconds to see the inside and we were out! That was it. We still had no idea why people were such in a rush, maybe that is what happen in Hindu temple, we are still not sure!!
After that we walked around, find a path to the viewpoints to see the whole city. It is big! We can’t really see the end of it. We also found a massive statue of a cow, which represent Nandi, who is the bull of the god Shiva. It was a nice, but hot walk! Ha yes, and monkeys! Again! Monkeys trying to steal stuffs from human! We don’t like monkeys too much. They are a bit scary! After that pretty confusing experience, we went back to our place and did a drawing competition, drawing each-others, to keep ourselves entertained (Emma won!).
The next day, we visited a cathedral, St. Philomena's Cathedral. This is a catholic church built in 1933 and is one of the tallest in Asia: the spires reach 53m high. I like visiting all type of places of worship and learn about the different religions, their difference and similarities.
After that, we went to the regional museum of natural history. This is a free museum: it has a great display, is well organised and well explained and is interesting. We were very nicely surprised as we didn’t find that place on any of the things to do in Mysore lists. Kev just saw it on Google map and we decided to give it a try. We have seen bigger and better museum (we went to the Louvres for example), but it was interesting. We spent a couple of hours reading about evolution of the planet and the animals on it. 2 hours well spent! The museum has a gate open to a park, so we spent the next few hours walking around this park, which is right next to a lake. It was relaxing and we couldn’t hear the city, which was a nice change (the city is noisy!). One of the most exciting part was that, at the museum, we learnt about the grizzled giant squirrel who lives in the area and while in the park, we saw one!!! There is a huge population of regular squirrel here in Mysore (the kids love spotting them around the city), but we had never seen or heard of a giant squirrel before. It was funny that the day we learnt about them, we saw one! We also saw more birds there than in the bird sanctuary back in Kerala! The funny thing about that park, was that we realised when leaving it, that we were supposed to pay for it. The entrance was at another place than the entrance we used (from the museum) and we think it was supposed to be closed. As it was half ish open, we thought we could get in! It was an honest mistake!
The next day was for me one of the best we had in India. It was Holi. Holi is a major Hindu festival to celebrate the love between of the deities Radha and Krishna. It also celebrates spring, the triumph of good over evil and it is also an invocation for a good spring harvest season. I was hoping to see a big celebration of it, but it seems to be more celebrated in the north of India. I still find tickets for a Holi celebration. Tickets included one drink each, food and some coloured powder. I really didn’t know what to expect. We got a taxi to get there as it was a bit outside of the city. The entrance was a bit messy, everyone trying to get their tickets to get in and their free drinks. It seems pretty typical here! We got in! Yeah! It was on a big open area with loud music. In the middle was a structure with water, showering whoever was under dancing. We stand around for a bit taking everything in. Pretty quickly, we were dancing and the kids asked to use the coloured powder we got. As some people around were already covered in it, we said why not!!! In a few minutes, we were all colourful. We then went dancing under the water as the sun was hot (as always). I forgot to say that this event started at 11am, so right when it is getting super hot! Some food was available, so we had some. It was such a fun experience. A lot of people wished us happy Holi, while putting colour on us. We took a few pictures with different groups, and it was fun. We had a really good time dancing, making connections, laughing and overall just enjoying the moment. After maybe 3 hours, the kids (and us too to be honest) were getting tired, so we left all those happy people dancing their day away and went back to our apartment for a good shower. Even after that we still had some tinge of colour on our skin!
Today is our last day here. We have a train just before midnight to go to Udupi. We’ll see you there!
MelLæs mere