Our Trip To Mysore

Its three years since we got married. Every time we would plan to go to Mysore there would be some hitch in the plan. But this time we made it. We suddenly planned it on November 7th ‘08. We started late afternoon from Bangalore. On the way we finished off so many things and were heading towards Mysore. It was about 10.30 in the night our car got punctured. But by God’s grace it was little outside Mysore, a small village. The whole place was dilapidated. But a person came for our help. There was no puncture guy near-by. And my dearest husband forgot the jack at home. We didn’t know what to do as the baby also was with us. But this guy was really a human. He took his bike and went some kilometers and brought a puncture guy along with him. The puncture guy changed the tire for us, and we again started on our trip. We reached Mysore at about 11.30 in the night. We searched for rooms and we were not able to find one. But in a Hotel called Royal Heritage near the palace we got a cottage for just Rs.600 which was a very good deal and an auto man named Basha who helped us in finding the hotel said he would charge only Rs.250 to take us around the city the next day. We got up at about 7.30 in the morning the next day (8th November) and were ready at about 8.15. But to our surprise, the auto driver was ready even before us. He first took us to St.Philomina’s church which you can see in the picture. It was really huge and amazing. It is a very old 18th century church and there was a gathering going on as it was a Sunday. We came around the church and I was fascinated seeing the huge beehives all around the church. Then he took us to the Karnataka Silk Emporium where we could see the machine in which the weave the silk saris and materials and they even showed us cocoon from which they take out silk. I did a little shopping there for saris. Then he took us to Sandal wood Emporium. We were totally wonderstruck seeing the wood carvings and huge statue made of sandal wood. They even had a big Swing made from sandal wood.
Then was the visit to the amazing part of the trip-the ZOO. The first site was of the Giraffe. We should really thankful to God for creating such beautiful species on earth! The giraffe with their long necks were having their morning breakfast. It was breakfast time and cleanup time when we reached the Zoo. Then we saw a lot birds. We got a chance to see the Flamingo. What a site it was! The birds were pink coloured and were standing with one leg up. There were lot of school children there who had come on a trip. We in between got a chance to meet up a doctor’s family who had come from Delhi for a conference to Bangalore and had come to Mysore as a small trip. They had hired a small open van which will take us all around the zoo in about hour and a half. They offered us seats and we told them that we would share the cost with them. Then the driver who was driving the open van took us to the tiger’s spot. There were huge tigers and there were even white tigers. We could see them moving here and there and people were even inside its cages to clean up. Then we saw a lot of animals as chimpanzees, Zebra, lots deer, reindeer, all sorts of monkey and finally we saw the king of the forest the lion and big Indian and African elephants. You can even see my husband

posing with my son in front of the African Elephants. My son Sai Sharan was amazed and was very happy seeing those elephants. Then we went to the Mysore Palace. It is one more amazing art piece which each one of us should surely see and enjoy. The Mysore Palace which is at present seen was built under the supervision of His Highness Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV with the model of the old palace at an aggregate cost of Rs.41, 47,913. It is said that the old palace got burnt out in some accident as it was made of wood. The King made a point that the present palace should be fire proof. It’s a very huge monument which shows the Indian culture, art and architecture. The palace still belongs to the Mysore Wodeyar family and the present king Shrikanta Raja Wodeyar stays at the back side of the palace. The so said throne which is full of gold and all precious stones is still in his custody. He brings it out during the 10 days Dashara festival which is world famous and sits on it to see the Dashara procession. There is a big garden in front of the palace which adds glory to the palace. We were not fully satisfied by our visit to the palace, but for lack of time we had to leave the place. After the visit to the palace we sent away the auto man Basha.
Then was our final visit to a very much happening place called Planet X. We had a very sumptuous lunch there and we played bowling there for sometime and we had to move off as it was already 5 in the evening. We vacated the hotel and went towards the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam which is built across the river Cauvery. We couldn’t go inside as it was totally crowded. So we had a glimpse from the distance and left for Bangalore. On the way we had our dinner which was very tasty a few kms away from Bangalore in a nice place called "Kadu Mane". The dinner was totally amazing and I could feel the mouth watering sensation still when I think about it even now. What an astounding trip it was!