Mysore ..... Royal Grandeur but with too much hype and hoopla

A write-up of my trip from Bangalore to Mysore via Channapatna - Maddur - Mandya

My recent trip to the royal city of Mysore confirms my belief that any famous tourist destination in India has nothing substantial to offer, they run their show based on a lot of hype and hoopla created around them. I am not saying that these places are not worth a visit, but then one goes in expecting something spectacular (because of the hype) but comes out hugely disappointed. At some point of time probably these places did have something out of the world to offer, but it got ruined due to various reasons. My earlier experiences like Ooty, Shimla have been similar and Mysore falls in the same list.

I have been staying in Bangalore for over 4 years now but somehow I never really regretted not visiting Mysore, I never really felt that urge or excitement to go to Mysore. My in laws had visited Mysore years back and loved it so when they came to Bangalore visiting us, they wanted another trip to the royal city, I was planning to take them somewhere else but seeing their excitement and zest I gave in and decided to give it a shot and honestly I came out with a OK experience, the usual famous places disappointed me but something else pleasantly surprised me. So here it is Mysore ... A city famous for not one but multiple unique things ... Mysore palace, Mysore silk, Mysore sandal wood, Mysore Paak (Indian sweet), there might be few more which I am not aware of .. Here's our full day out in the royal city of Mysore.

We started well early this time to avoid traffic, a lesson learnt from our last visit to Shivansamudra falls. This time around we managed to avoid traffic and get out of city limits smoothly, but its very rare that all things fall in place properly, last time we got stuck in traffic but had a polite driver, this time it was the other way round. Our driver was arrogant and kind of lost, 30 min into the drive and we knew we were stuck with a stupid guy, whom we will have to bear for the whole day, he stopped at his own convenience to have tea and breakfast, until I gave him a piece of my mind and asked him to have tea and eat where we stop for the same .... very imp lesson learnt from this trip always book a cab with a reliable source and not any local vendors, even though a reputed company won't negotiate on the rates but still better to pay a bit extra than bear a cranky driver.

Since we had started early, we had good amount of time on hands so before entering Mysore we decided to check out Shrirangpatna aka the summer capital of the great emperor Tipu Sultan. We first went to see the Ranganatha temple in Shrirangpatna, it was nothing great, though if one has time to spare one can visit it since its only couple of Km form the highway, I will have to confess here that because of the turn of events since morning and a argument with the a guy who keeps footwear outside temple, I was not in a right frame of mind to visit this temple, so might be that didn't really like it that much, so don't take my advise for this one, please visit it, u might find it good. We skipped Tipu's summer palace (no one was in a mood) and decided to head straight to Mysore palace. On the way my brother in law shot some pics .. here are they

We entered the palace and another disaster stuck us, our camera was not functioning properly, it was frustrating to see a day going so bad .. coming back to palace, I liked it, its really grand, but somehow I was having a feeling of something is missing. It was not like a super straight drive by Sachin, where u get a feeling .... this is it, this is complete. That feeling of mine disappeared once I stepped inside the palace, its awesomely beautiful and grand. before I get into the details of the inside of palace, one point to remember - photography is allowed outside of the palace and not inside, so make sure you take all the pics u wish, then submit the camera in the lock room, I am stressing this cause the lock room is not where you enter the palace but where you enter the premises so if you forget, you again have to walk back all the way to the main gate, I did that, its a classic example of not so perfect planning of our authorities .. don't know whats the logic behind this planning, though I'd like to laud the authorities for maintaining the premises clean and also keeping a tight security chk while entering the palace .. good job. here are some pics of the palace and its premises.

You step inside the palace and the flooring, roof carving, huge portraits, antique furniture, everything is jaw dropping, we think that we live in a very technologically advanced world, with all our ipods, iphones, laptops and trendy cell phone's .. but all these things seem just so small and meaningless with all the grandeur around ... the stand out among all the rooms was the marriage hall where all royal wedding took place and the Shahi Darbar .. a Diwan-e-Khas .... its beautiful grand and one can't get enough of it ... a lovely experience .. I jokingly told my father in law, why didn't they hire this wedding hall instead of the one where we got married. While inside the palace one thought kept crossing my mind a lot .. Quality was giving so much importance in those days, in fact it was the highest parameter on the cards, we are so missing on that, we have absolutely no quality in 99% things that we have around these days. We came out of the palace and for some time I found things around ( modern building, cars and stuff) so so ugly ... as if not even a little though is giving while creating them, of course times have changed and its not right to compare. Photography is not allowed inside which is good, things like this needs to be cherished in your memory, but one thing I didn't like is the diff. in entry fee for Indians and foreign nationals, Indians - 20/- , Foreign Nationals - 200/-, agreed its nothing for them, but even they can see the difference and I feel it creates a very bad example of our country.

Next on the cards was Mysore Zoo .. for the simple reason that it has been years since anyone of us had visited a Zoo and I desperately wanted to go back to the era of my childhood, so I was really excited and it didn't disappoint us, in fact this is the pleasant surprise I was talking about. Its huge, properly maintained, and has a range of animals ... u get to see most of those animals u see on Discovery channel in front of you and its exciting but at the same time you feel equally sad at least I did seeing these wild animals kept in cage, in fact when I came out I loved the experience of revisiting my childhood but at the same time felt terrible sad, guilty and sorry for these animals and honestly people in India don;t understand this, if they did then they would have respected the privacy of the animals watched quietly and moved on but no comments needs to be passed, animals need to be fed and some mischief needs to be done else how will we enjoy ... here are some pics of the zoo

            I left the zoo with some nostalgia and sympathy for animals, I silently resolved to get back to this zoo and help in one of the above mentioned way. On a lighter note ... there were about 6 , 7 tigers in zoo and each one was adopted by someone, one tiger was adopted by the CM of Karnataka Yeduyurappa and not surprisingly that was the most starved tiger, felt bad for the tiger and hoped that someday he has Mr CM for his dinner.

           We were hungry and tired so instead of searching for some place we decided to have dosa at a nearby small Udupi Upahar and it was yuk, one of the worst Dosa I ever had, see this is where I hate famous places, Taxi drivers, hotel owners just don't care for you, cause they know ppl will keep coming, this doesn't happen in a less popular place cause everyone there really values their tourist. After a bad meal we decided to indulge in some shopping, which again was not such a good exp. as the rates of Mysore silk saree were more than they are in Bangalore, it might be that we were having some bad luck and ran into not so good shops, but over all it was a sad exp.

           Finally we decided to forget everything else and head to the hugely famous Brindawan gardens, entire day we were having awesome forecast skies with cool breeze and we thought its just the right setting to end our trip in Brindawan gardens, I had seen so many old actress breaking into a song in this garden I was dying to see it, was expecting a spectacular kind of garden, but it felt hugely short of what I expected, The location is nice and the forecast sky and cool breeze made it even better, I did feel calm and serene here which was the good part, after a tiring day felt nice to be around trees and in a wonderful weather but apart from that nothing really great. The famous musical fountain show was also nothing to rave about, probably these were once famous and good places but have lost its charm over the time and only the hype has remained. Brindawan Gardens disappointed me big time, but I was happy that rest of my family enjoyed it. here are some pics of the same

That was the end of our trip, it started on a great note with Mysore Palace but ended on a low note, never the less it was fun being with everyone ... I usually give some personal advice from my experience of the trip, but in this case Mysore is such a famous destination that a lot is already available, so the only advise would be to book a cab from reliable source and not go in with too much expectation because of the place being already famous, I believe you will tend to have more fun .. Have a good trip

Hope you enjoyed reading my travelogue.

Kashmir – Switzerland of the East

Kashmir also known as Switzerland of the east because of its natural beauty and land of cherry blossoms and saffron fields, of sparkling rivers and serene lakes, of stunning gardens and stately chinar trees, of flowering meadows and snow-capped peaks. Kashmir is the most famous tourist destination of the india which offers so many attractions such as lakes, monasteries, pilgrimages of Kashmir, wildlife of Kashmir and many other things. It is said that a visit to Kashmir divides your life into two parts – before and after Kashmir. For indeed, once you visit this enchanted land, you are never quite the same again.