The morning came early, but we met Lokesh and Karthik at 6:30 AM in the hotel lobby. They are two young ERL engineers who had been pressed into being our tour guides. Our van arrived and at 7 AM we were off to Mysore.
Even that early on a Sunday morning, the streets were fairly busy. There were cricket pitches with people out playing on them, a market garden filled with people, and the traffic was, well, not crazy, but busy.
I put on sunscreen but then immediately started to sweat and washed some into my eye, very painful. I tried to wash it out with tears for over an hour, but finally, two stops at restaurants along the road, and rinsing it out, it gave me some peace.
The drive was… interesting. So many different things on the road. Motorbikes with 1, 2, 3, and 4 people on them (more to say on that later), auto rickshaws, cars, trucks, overcrowded buses, trucks with boxes filled with people, trucks filled to overflowing (hay for instance) so they were twice their normal width, bicycles, pedestrians – you name it. A new one for me were truck frames with engine, a hood, a seat and steering wheel, and a young man driving it – no windshield, no cab top – we saw 3 of those. I learned later that they were going from the frame plant to the body plant… fair enough, but in Canada, they would be on a flatdeck. Not so here :-)
Even that early on a Sunday morning, the streets were fairly busy. There were cricket pitches with people out playing on them, a market garden filled with people, and the traffic was, well, not crazy, but busy.
I put on sunscreen but then immediately started to sweat and washed some into my eye, very painful. I tried to wash it out with tears for over an hour, but finally, two stops at restaurants along the road, and rinsing it out, it gave me some peace.
The drive was… interesting. So many different things on the road. Motorbikes with 1, 2, 3, and 4 people on them (more to say on that later), auto rickshaws, cars, trucks, overcrowded buses, trucks with boxes filled with people, trucks filled to overflowing (hay for instance) so they were twice their normal width, bicycles, pedestrians – you name it. A new one for me were truck frames with engine, a hood, a seat and steering wheel, and a young man driving it – no windshield, no cab top – we saw 3 of those. I learned later that they were going from the frame plant to the body plant… fair enough, but in Canada, they would be on a flatdeck. Not so here :-)
Despite it being four lane highway all the way, our speed was uneven, and generally slow. People were entering and exiting the highway all over the place, pedestrians crossing. vehicles weaving in and out. It is crazy trying to drive here, I’m sure.
We got to Dariya Daulat Bagh, where the last Muslim king of Mysore had his palace, at about 10:30. There was a nice long formal garden with a palace building. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the palace, but it was full of murals, paintings, and photographs of the life and times of the Muslim king, his conquests, his victory over the English (he is revered because he’s the only one that stung the English in this manner), then subsequent defeat. Very interesting.
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| Looking back at the entranceway |
| Looking along the formal garden to the palace |
| Aside to the left to beautiful lawns framed by trees sculpted into columns |
| The palace itself |