A much needed break!!!

Just came back from a much needed short weekend trip to Mysore. The trip was almost jeopardized because the Varamaha Lakshmi festival fell on the same day as Independence day and my wife and my friend's wife were hell bent upon celebrating the same. I for one, wanted to make sure that the trip lasted all of three days (long weekend) rather than just the Saturday and Sunday. Ultimately we managed to convince the ladies to keep the festival short and sweet (minus the relatives :-)) and the four of us (Bhaskar, Meg, Smitz & me) left to Mysore around 1:00 PM on Friday after the puja.

The plan was to just relax in the idyllic city and we had booked appointments for all of us at the Windflower Spa on Sunday and were eagerly looking forward to the Spa experience.

Pitstop

On the way we stopped at the Barista Cafe near Ramanagar and dug into some yummy cheesy spinach sandwiches and gulped loads of Latte / Ginger Tea/ Barissta Caramello. Its surprising at the number of cafe joints that have sprung up all along the way to Mysore and beyond. I am sure they must be doing real good business considering the crowd we noticed in all of these cafes.

Ranganathittu

We had initially planned to visit Talkad and then go to Mysore but changed plans along the way and opted to go to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary near Srirangapatna. The tickets cost us about Rs 100 + 25 (Camera). The concerned people did not actually give us the tickets and just waived us through the gate after collecting the money. On inquiring, they gave some lame excuse about the ticket machine not working. They would have pocketed the money in all likelihood.

Boating in the sanctuary had been stopped due to the rise in water levels as it had been raining incessantly for the past few days. However the weather was just perfect. Not sure if we saw all the variety of birds that usually are common sight here during the season. We did see a lot of Ibis (Black Headed), Herons (White and Purple), Egrets and Cormorants from afar. Maybe if there was boating, we would have been able to sight a few more of the birds. We could not see the crocodiles though, much to my displeasure. I love those reptiles... Cannot say the same about Meg.. She absolutely freaks out at the sight of any reptile... I have see her reaction encountering a leech on her foot in Kudremukh (Sigh! What a wonderful place, another story to share another time), I can imagine her reaction towards a big Croc :-)



We were in store for a surprise here as we came across a long lost friend of ours who had drifted away from us over the last few years for reasons that are best explained as being Unsavory. I must say that it was not really the kind of encounter we were looking forward to but in the end, was, kind of welcome.

"Ale mane"

We went on towards Mysore and Bhaskar suggested that we stop over at a village near Srirangapatna to watch the Jaggery making process at one of the "ale mane". A worker explained that the "factory" was closed that day as the Sugarcanes had not been supplied, however he was kind enough to show around the place and explain how it all worked (another blog?). We saw the huge pots(?) that are used to caramelize the Sugarcane juice into Jaggery. We also saw the wooden dye boards that were used to make the ""bella achhu". There were bees all around the boards and we were pretty concerned about being stung. Apparently there are more bees when the actual process is going on and the workers there are often stung by the bees, but they are quite used to it. After Bhaskar took some photographs, we went on our way to Mysore.

"Kings Court Hotel" - whom were you kidding when you named it?

We reached Mysore around 7.00 PM and immediately checked in to the Hotel Kings Court (Opposite Metropole). They had messed up by booking one of the two rooms we had asked, with twin bed instead of a double bed room. Apparently you have to specify that you need a king size double bed even after you have told them that the room is needed for a married couple. This ridiculous statement was made by non other than the owner of the Hotel. It was a pity that we could not change to any other hotel as they were all full as it was a long weekend. We forced the staff to join the cots and put a king size bed over it. The rooms were okay other than the fact that they needed a major face lift and replacement of the light fixtures - the cover of the night lamp just fell off as soon as I pressed the switch built into it. The plumbing in the bathrooms was horrible and leaky and it was ironic that they had a board in there saying "Conserve Water" while the flush tank was leaking water like a open tap throughout our stay. They could not fix it for whatever reason. This certainly will be the last time we ever stay in this setup.

After settling in we wanted to have some great dinner and decided on Metropole. We have always had our food here whenever we have traveled to Mysore and have liked it a lot. However this time, that was not to be the case. The service was lousy and the food was also equally lousy. We were pretty pissed at the fact that we had to pay a fortune for this experience and complained to the F&B Manager on our way out. He assured us that he would do his best to address the issues. We headed back to our rooms and then decided to call it a day as we had planned to climb up the Chamundi hill early next morning.

Chamundi Hill

The stairs used to climb up Chamundi hill has about 1000 steps. We were quite surprised to see quite a lot of people, old and young alike, climbing up the stairs. Around half the way we were beginning to get real tired (not so much because of the difficulty, as because of our fitness levels) and Meg gave up saying she would go back to the car and drive it up the hill and meet us at the parking lot near the temple. We toiled along and came across the Nandi. We admired it for a while - It looks so serene and graceful in that posture. We took rest here for a while and drank the Sugarcane juice and also ate cucumber. We flagged down Meg as she drove past and she also stopped and ate along with us. By then we had covered about 600 steps and had another 400 to go. We continued along the stairs as Meg continued by Car. The rest of the climb was not so tiresome. The scene was pretty much the same as you would find across any of the zillion temples in our country. Lots of small shops and hawkers selling puja items, wooden/plastic toys and trinkets etc, lots and lots of people from all walks of life, lots of monkeys, lots of street dogs. We drank coconut milk while Bhaskar went in search of Meg. In the meanwhile we settled down in a corner bench and waited for Bhaskar and Meg. Once they came and had their quota of coconut milk, we decided to leave and go have breakfast in Mysore city.

Mylari Hotel

After the previous nights experience in Metropole, we had decided that we would not go to some other such hotel and had decided to try out some of the famous small eateries. Bhaskar knew all these places as he had lived here for a short while earlier during his schooling. We headed to the "Original Mylari Hotel" located in the Nazarbad main road. This is a very small place and often crowded and is famous for the Masala Dosas and chutney. Luckily we got seats almost immediately as it was a bit late in the morning (around 10.30 AM). We had worked up quite an appetite by then and ordered Masala Dosas and shortly were biting into the delicious Dosas. After previous night's experience at Metropole, this was heaven for us. We had coffee later which had more water than milk and then went on our way to the "ale mane" once again as the care taker had told that they would get a fresh supply of Sugarcane this morning. However it turned out that it still had not arrived and so we went to the Zoo.

Mysore Zoo

It had been a long time since any of us had been to a Zoo and we were kind off looking forward to the experience. The Mysore Zoo is reasonably maintained compared to Indian standards and a lot of development work seemed to be happening all around. Being a weekend we had expected it to be crowded and so it was. The Zoo has a 3 Km winding path around which the enclosures are present. First stop was the Giraffe enclosure and I set my eyes upon a Giraffe the first time ever in my life. I have seen them a lot of times on National Geographic but this was nothing compared to seeing that. They are tall and very graceful animals. Next we came across the Bird enclosures and saw a lot of exotic species like the golden Chinese pheasant, yellow pheasant, peacocks, peahens, Cockatoos, Parakeets, etc. But it really was a pity that these are caged and they all seemed to be a little off color except for a few. Next was the Rhinoceros enclosure, this animal is huge. It looks very majestic too. We also saw the Hippo, many species of Macaques, Blackbuck deers, Sambar deers, Marsh deers, Barking deers, Neelghai, Zebras, etc. We then came across the Tiger enclosure. These tigers were put in cages around 15 X 15 feet and seemed very restless as they were roaming around continuously in the confined space. It did not help that most of the crowd were focusing their attention on these enclosures and were churning up a racket, screaming, talking loudly, whistling etc. It was really sad and frustrating to see such a beautiful animal subjugated to such a situation. After this, we just felt that we did not want to be in that Zoo any longer. After having a short break at the Ice cream parlor, we headed to the exit quickly. Once we were out, we were pretty hungry and Bhaskar suggested to stop for lunch at Iyer's mess.

Iyer's Mess

This is a small, no-frills, vegetarian meal on a plantain leaf, setup near the law courts. I must say we were not really very hungry because of the late (& heavy) breakfast but nevertheless ate the meal with relish as it was quite tasty. The meal was pretty simple with a Chapathi and couple of curries, rice, Sambhar, Rasam and Curds. Its amazing how you get such delicious food at such small joints - beats the star hotels on any give day... well, at least some of the food items if not all...

Then we headed back to the hotel to have a siesta as we were pretty tired from the exertion in the morning climb and afternoon Zoo tour. We planned to go to Planet X for some bowling/gokarting action later in the evening.

Planet X

Boy, was it crowded or what. We had arrived much later than we had expected as we all awoke late from our siesta. Since it was already late we had decided to grab some light supper. We wanted to try out the Ragi Rotti at the Nalpak hotel as it is supposed to be quite delicious. However it was not all that much great in taste as we had heard but nevertheless it was better than whatever we had at Metropole. By the time we arrived at Planet X, the gokarting was closed and there was a hour long wait for the bowling. We decided against the same as we were not too keen to be in such a crowded place. I then suggested that we drive down all the way to Bandipur and Mudumalai Sanctuary, it would be a nice long drive and also would be thrilling to go for a night ride through the forest. Everybody was game for it and at 9.00 PM we left towards Bandipur.

Bandipur

The road between Nanjangud and Gundlupet was pretty bad and it took us about 2 Hrs before we reached Bandipur. There was also a lot of vehicular traffic in the route. There was a full moon that night and also there was supposed to be a Lunar eclipse later in the midnight. The forest looked amazing in the moonlight. We saw quite a bit of spotted deer and Sambar deers grazing alongside the road. They seemed to be least concerned about the vehicles zipping by on the road. We crossed the border and paid Rs 20 for forest entry fee at the forest check post. Then we were stopped by the Tamilnadu police in the police check post, beside the forest check post. They asked for Rs. 50 to let us through and we were pretty irritated and argued that we had just payed the forest entry fee. They immediately asked us to park the car and started examining the vehicle documents, license etc. We then realized that Bhaskar had left his RC book back in Bangalore and we had to pay a fee of Rs 100. The policeman advised us smartly that if we had shut up and paid up the Rs. 50, we would not have had this problem. I wonder how many illegal logging trucks, poachers, smugglers, terrorists have passed through this check post paying up this Rs 50/XXX amount.

Mudumulai

We then proceeded towards Mudumalai and saw many Elephants and a Gaur along the way. From Mudumalai we took the diversion towards Masinagudi as I had been through the route before and felt that there are more chances of sighting wild animals in this route as the traffic is negligible compared to the Ooty route. I was proven terribly wrong as we came across jeeps and jeeps loaded with people all through the route. We saw some parked in the middle of the road with their headlights directed towards a herd of Elephants and thats when we realised that these were out on night Safari. There are a number of resorts all around Masinagudi and these rides are organised by them. We were very disturbed to see these people intruding upon the Elephants space and disturbing them like this. The forest department should keep tabs on these activities and also should ensure that they are not so invasive... We then turned around and headed back towards Mysore as it had gotten pretty late - around 1.00 AM.

Cafe Coffee Day Pitstop

We had noticed this just outside Gundlupet, on our way to Bandipur. This was a 24 hour cafe and we stopped over for some much needed coffee to keep us awake during the ride back to Mysore. We sat for about 1/2 hour drinking the steaming latte and felt quite refreshed. Then we were on our way yet again. We reached Mysore around 3.00 AM in the morning.

Windflower Spa

We woke up between 9.30 - 10.00 AM and got fresh and by the time we checked out of the hotel, it was around 11.00 Am. We headed towards GTR as we wanted to try the Idli's there and then headed towards Mylari for a plate of Masala Dosa. Unfortunately they were serving only plain dosa by then and we had to make do with that. After that we went to the Windflower Spa.

Its surprising that given the amount of tourists Mysore has, there are not many Spas here. Actually I know of only two - Windflower and the Indus Valley Ayur. Of these we choose the Windflower Spa. The ambience is quite impressive and classy. However the rooms are a touch too bright and not sound proof. The noise from the outside keeps drifting in. Also the staff should be better trained, I had gone for a Abhyanga massage - a tandem massage which involves two people doing synchronised massage but there was nothing synchronous in their massaging. They both were massaging with different pressures and it was a touch irritating. Also they did not play any soothing music you tend to encounter at such places. However all in all I guess it was reasonable compared to the price they were offering these services.

After the massage, we were sitting in the lawn as we were waiting for Meg and Smitz. Here we saw a resident white Cockatoo. The poor birds wings had been clipped so that it would not fly away. The staff mentioned that it belonged to the owner of the Windflower and was a favourite among the guests. It looked to be in a decent condition but after a while we saw hordes of guests/children surrounding and repeatedly petting, and plucking at the hapless bird. It looked to be in discomfort because of the unwanted attention and also started cawing loudly until the staff came and politely asked the guests to move away and put the bird in its cage. It was really sad to see this. I will be complaining about the bird to some animal welfare organization very soon.

We then walked down to the restaurant for lunch but found that they were serving only Chinese as it was already beyond 3.00 PM. We decided to grab a Sub instead and left the Spa.

Back for good

The drive back was pretty tiresome as there was a lot of traffic and to add to that, it rained quite heavily all the way between Maddur and Ramnagar. We stopped along the way at a Cafe Coffee Day and had some light refreshments and continued on our way. It was 8.00 PM by the time we reached our homes in Bangalore.

All in all a good and much needed break from the grind!