Mysore and Bangalore

On Saturday, the teachers from our course organized a day trip to Mysore, the 'must see' sight nearby Bangalore. We all piled into the mini-bus (14 adults and 2 kids in a 13 seat van - they had ordered a 15 seat one, but this is what showed up, and was hardly crowded by Indian standards) at 7:30am and drove the 2.5 hours to Mysore. Mysore was the capital for the Raja of the region since about the 1400's, and continued to be the state capital after British occupation until it moved to Bangalore at independence.

I was interested to observe how the 'must see' sights shown us by our Indian teachers differed from what I would have selected to see myself. I might have skipped the Catholic Cathedral and Zoo – both of which were interesting – and stopped at the 17^th century fort that we drove by on the way up – even if there was nothing inside to see. However, overall, Mysore did live up to its reputation. The temple on Chamundi Hill overlooking Mysore was ornate and impressive. The monkeys, who presumably live at the nearby temple to the monkey god, were also very entertaining. They all seemed to have a baby, who held onto their mother for dear life as she scampered around.

The highlight of Mysore had to be the Maharaja's Palace. It was fabulously ornate – like something you would imagine out of the Arabian Nights. Perhaps it was modelled off of these stories, as it was re-built after a fire in the early 1900's. Still, it lived up my expectations of the elegance, luxury and exoticness of a palace from the orient. I was sorry not to be able to take pictures inside, but made up for it by taking many outside. Some of my pictures from there, and the rest of the Mysore trip can be seen here.

We ended the day by going to a garden that puts on a musical fountain show every night. The moving fountains and spotlights are choreographed in time with the music, somewhat like a firework show (without all the noise). It was really lovely. It did mean we didn't get back to Bangalore until after midnight.

Sunday, I went to the Anglican Cathedral in Bangalore for church. It was really nice to go to a familiar service in English – something I haven't been able to do since I left England in January. I was only one of a few white people there, the rest of the congregation were Indian. A couple of the others from the course came, including my boss Manoj, who is Hindu and had never been to a church service before. He thought it was interesting, although rather confusing. I reassured him that many Christians find the Anglican service confusing as well, (switching between the Bible, prayer book and hymn book) if they're not used to it.

We didn't know what time the service was, so arrived early enough to wander around in the main city park. We were surprised to see a statue of Queen Victoria 'Empress of India' still up in the park. Manoj commented that in Nepal it would for sure have been torn down after independence – certainly it only took 3 weeks to kick the King out of the palace in Nepal now that it is a republic, and all royal statues have been removed.

Random bits of India trivia that confused me at first - the Bangalore's state language is Kanada. Pronounced Canada. And the neighbouring state is Kerala, pronounced Carola. Unfortunately for me, Kanada has a different language base and uses different script from Hindi and Nepali, so my Nepali learning doesn't help as much as I'd hoped. However, most signs are also in English and most people speak some English too, so it's not too much of an handicap.