Being tourists

Mysore is in the Southern Indian state of Karnataka, and there's more than plenty in both Mysore and Karnataka to satisfy our tourism curiosity. Here's a quick round up of some of our recent outings. 

The temple at the top of Chamundi Hill

Up to Chamundi Hill - a short rickshaw ride away is Chamundi Hill which is 1062m high. At the top of the hill is Sri Chamundeswari Temple which has lovely views of the city. We visited on a Sunday afternoon not realizing that that is when the temple gives out free food. The long lines of "assertive" locals eager to get in, and the midday heat put us off actually going inside, but we enjoyed the views. On the way down, we met Nandi the bull, carved out of stone.

A bull (I'm Taurus) meets a bull

The Maharaja's Palace at night - according to the Lonely Planet guide book, the Maharaja's Palace in Mysore is one of the grandest of India's royal buildings. Every Sunday evening it is lit up like a giant fairy tale palace for all to admire, and it was certainly well-admired by us and a bunch of our yoga friends a couple of weeks ago. 

Erik and Lisa romantic at the palace

The gates opened and we all rushed in to the grounds just before 7pm. We were standing aww-ing at the palace with its elegant lighting, when all of a sudden, somebody somewhere flipped a switch, and we were dazzled by close to 100,000 light bulbs decorating the entire outside of the palace. There was a collective intake of breath from those of us seeing it for the first time. Even though it was close to something from Disney, it was still utterly majestic and definitely romantic. I look forward to seeing the insides on another visit.

Bylakuppe - en route to a long weekend in the hills (see next posting) we stopped at this village which was one of the first refugee settlements set up for Tibetan people fleeing their county after the Chinese invasion in 1959. It's a fascinating place which has preserved the Tibetan way of life.

In front of the temple

Our main reason for visiting Bylakuppe was the amazing Namdroling monastery and it's stunning Golden Temple. Having spent 2 years in Thailand, we have seen our share of Buddhist temples, but this place really moved me. The monastery was peaceful, the young monks in their purple and yellow robes seemed content both inside the temple at prayers as well as when they were playing cricket and football behind the temple. The intricate decoration of the temple showed such love and devotion from those involved in its conception and building. The 18m high gold plated buddha statue,  in spite of its grandeur, instilled a sense of calm and serenity. 

Beautiful Buddha statue

At 1pm it was time for prayers when the whole temple turned in to this clanging, banging amusement arcade sounding place.... crashing high-pitched gongs and cymbals punctuating, and completely contrasting with, the low-muttered, meditative prayers.

Big gongs and low prayers

A wonderful place! From there we went on to the Coorg/Kodagu region to the hills.... Worth a posting all to itself.