Karnataka - Mysore Eudaimonia

July 2015 - January 2016
This trip lists all the footprints I left in the state of Karnataka while I stayed in Hebbal, Mysore. And all subsequent sentimental visits there!
Disclaimer: No parental guidance required while reading this.
  • 21footprints
  • 1countries
  • 162days
  • 121photos
  • 0videos
  • 934kilometers
  • Day 1

    First Look

    July 27, 2015 in India ⋅ ☀️ 40 °C

    New to the southern domain of India, I was a little apprehensive of how it might turn out to be. Verily, when the Mysore Express pulled into Mysore 7 hours behind schedule, after two long days of hard journeying, it did nothing to ease my apprehension.

    Not that the journey itself had been bad. I did manage to find some fellow travellers to Bangalore on d train. Neha Salah, HR at a private firm and Darth, tech guy at Cognizant. Travellers less, students more. But good companions. The two days were spent in fun, exchanging berths, food and a lot of music.

    On the morning of 26th, as the train pulled into @Vishakhapatnam, I felt a certain shift in the climate than what I was accustomed to. Far on the horizon were the blue Nilgiri Hills. Backbone of the south. When not cracking the silliest of jokes n laughing our asses off, the day was spent hanging from the train's doors, gazing out at the blue hills in the distance n the waving coconut/khajur trees lining every single road. Bangalore, we reached at 5am in the morning where I bid adieu to my new companions.

    All my doubts were laid to rest as our train pulled into Mysuru junction @10am. I was awestruck. A more serene and peaceful city I hadn't seen. It was like the entire city had been taken out and put out of time compared to the contemporary world. A timeless old fashioned classic.

    I reached my destination from the station in one the hundreds of autos that ply here. I didn't look back once. I was looking forward to staying here. Getting to know this place inside out. Little did I know what this place had in store for me in the weeks to come! ;)
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  • Day 2

    Infy Days

    July 28, 2015 in India ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

    Not much that I am gonna comment up here. That part of my work life, as endearing as it looks to workaholics is a regular pain in the ass for me.
    Though it does do come with it's own perks. Look at the pictures for the amenities.
    Okay, my first idea has always been that life of an IT guy sucks. And sucking on an ice cream fruit salad, I thought how true it was. Still.... Fingers crossed.. You never know.
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  • Day 8

    First Outing

    August 3, 2015 in India ⋅ ☀️ 40 °C

    First weekend, and man were we excited about it!!
    What was the craze about Mysore, the cleanest city, all about? We were about to find out. So, we managed to pinpoint on three locations to start our footprints : Mysore Palace, Chamundi Hills and Karanji Lake!
    Stop One was the busiest attraction.
    The rich cultural heritage of Mysore unfolded before us via a tour of the palace. The place was teeming with tourists. We learnt more about the King Wadeyar and his family.
    The people of Mysore are one of the friendliest I have ever seen.
    We boarded a bus from the city bus stand and took the winded road up to Chamundi Hills and had one of the best views of the entire city sprawled out beneath us. Verily, the journey is worth more than the destination.
    Chamundi Hills houses the temple of Goddesses Chamundeshwari, the patron deity of Karnataka. The temple, a shining example of South Indian architecture is a full house of tourists, worshippers, devotees and hawkers alike. It was an infantry of people.
    Crossing Chamundi off our lists, we made our way to Karanji Lake. Karanji boasts of a hundred acre garden, an impressive aviary and the namesake, a lake. That really caught my attention was the display of birds at the huge aviary. It was a perfect blend of a million hues of the birds and the wild greenery. Peacocks, cuckoos, Macaus and innumerable others I have no idea of the names of.
    The perfect ending to this day came when we made the climb up a 100 foot watchtower and watched the serene sunset over the sprawling sparkling lake. A thousand words cannot describe that single picture.
    Mere words are all I had.
    This wasn't just worth a week's wait, it was a precursor for the weeks to come.
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  • Day 41

    Coorg - Land of Spices!

    September 5, 2015 in India ⋅ ☀️ 5 °C

    My first weekend away from Mysore and boy, was I excited about it! Nearly 12 of us booked a van and were off in the wee hours of the day to visit the much rumoured Madikeri to see if it really lived up to the hype! And did it do so! With aplomb!
    Since Madikeri was too big to be properly visited in a weekend, we focused on South Madikeri. Rushing through the forests of (whose name is eluding me at the moment), to the monasteries of Bylakuppe, to the tea and coffee estates, we reached Abbey waterfalls. Abbey is one of the most popular waterfalls in the midst of coffee plantations with a hanging bridge for observations. It was simply mesmerizing for me who was witnessing such a huge waterfall for the first time in my life! The monasteries of Bylakuppe, like all monasteries was too peaceful for words. We finally reached a booked guest house in the evening where after a lot of drama and action among large groups, we finally fell asleep. We had hardly slept a minute before we had to wake up and visit Tala Kaveri, the origin of the Cauvery river. Well, visit is a small word, we had to climb over 300 steps (who's counting) to reach the top which was too foggy to see a thing. All for fog!
    What really struck us were the chocolate and spice stores along the way, every few hundred metres. Warm coffee and chocolate in the cold weather, is really the topping on the ice in this place. I could unfortunately not complete the entire Coorg or Madikeri and vowed to come back a second time to complete it! Madikeri made my day.. weekend!
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  • Day 69

    Back to Coorg!

    October 3, 2015 in India ⋅ ☀️ 5 °C

    I made good on my vow to come back to this place. There was something about the waterfalls and hot chocolates and coffee about this place that pulled me back. Much of north Coorg was left unexplored the last time so I had my heart set on Iruppu falls which was a scenic waterfall as beautiful as Abbey but with a walking path through jungle like locale!
    Guys, do NOT mess with waterfalls. I and my friend Himanshu know this well as we nearly slipped down the waterfall in our excitement to clamber up it. Never again, never again so foolhardy!
    All's well that ends well however and our day culminated the way I had wished it to be. Sipping hot coffee and eating local chocolates.
    As our car winded back to Mysore, 90's music playing on the stereo I realized I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day in my life. :)
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  • Day 87

    Ashtamir Dhaak

    October 21, 2015 in India ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    A hundred miles away from home. A thousand leagues away from the hustle bustle of my city. I cannot describe the immense pleasure and gratitude I felt at being able to sway to the beats of the dhaak once again.
    Undoubtedly, I was morose at being away from one of the biggest celebrations in the world. Durga Puja at Kolkata. So imagine my joy at finding a committee which organises this in Mysore.
    In true traveller fashion, we had scoped out the place a day before for timings. :P
    Wednesday morning dawned bright n clear. The ice bucket challenge of bathing literally made my knees weak. When we reached Gokulam (in 5 mins, courtesy of UBER :D ) we wasted no time in queuing up for morning anjali, an offering to the Goddess. With flowers and the beat of the dhaak and the Sanskrit chanting of the purohit, made for a welcome change from local language that I was getting used to.
    We spent time sniggering at holy Sanskrit words and then feeling mortified. Anjali was followed by a series of selfies with fellows Bengalis. Before the hour was up, it was time to rush back to our workplace.
    One hour, one million memories, touched one lonely homesick heart! :)
    Looking forward to Dusshera! ;)
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  • Day 89

    Dusshera Night Out

    October 23, 2015 in India ⋅ 🌬 21 °C

    Dusshera. Dashami. Departure of the Goddess.
    The spectacle unfolded before us in Mysore on terms grander than I expected. The roads were chok-a-block with people.
    Dusshera in Mysore involves a grand exhibition where a procession of elephants is led throughout the streets upto the gates of the Mysore Palace. The 275 year old palace is alit with lights and gets a new life of its own.
    80 to 8 year olds all pour out on the streets for a glimpse of the fever that grips the city.
    Street food to restaurants, vendors to shops, roadside golgappas to coorg spices special, everything gets a makeover during this period! And people revel in this madness.
    Hence, we made a plan to spend a night out in this madness to catch the experience first hand. Well, less of a plan, more of an impulse.
    We had no rooms booked, nothing as a backup. The evening passed in a haze of madness, crowds, revelry and culinary satisfactions.
    Started the evening with a dandiya night wherein all our inner MJs and Pandit Birju Maharaj awoke and made us sway to the beats in ways unknown to us before.
    And then we definitely made hikers all over the globe proud from the sheer amount we walked that night. There was an exhibition ongoing but we decided to skip that for lack of time. Exploring each and every crowded side street, each and every food stall vendor, pushing and get pushed, we made our way from one part of the city to the other.
    Tired and exhausted by midnight, when we found ourselves in front of the Mysore mall, we had no guilty feelings in rushing in and relieving ourselves. In all senses of the word. Refreshed, but unable to walk further, we decided to catch a late night show of any movie running. For a better part of 3 hours we spent in the mall and then left it for the city's nightlife. The crowds had thinned by now, so we made our way through the empty streets to the suburban bus stand, the only place with a 24 hour hustle bustle and made ourselves feel at home in the cold with large cups of cappacinos! Cold thawed and unwilling to sit silently, we played and thoroughly enjoyed a game of dumb charades impromptu. Shared our acts with a eagerly gathered crowd who left no 'guesses' unturned to help us with our games. Time flew without us even realising it.
    When the sky finally grew lighter, and the early birds made their way out of their nests, we made our way back to our campus. The whispers on the returning bus finally subsided and I turned back to see everyone asleep with a tired but happy smile on their faces.
    A perfect night out. A perfect lot of people to spend it with. A perfect place to spend it in.
    #MysoreDiaries
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