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Accepted :uncontrol. You never stop !!
That thali surely looks delicious.

Thanks Star! Thanks for the crown.

Hi Friend,

Pictures of nature. Mountain and lake. Forest and the horses. The boat and the temple. Flowers and babies, Angel and the town, The Tamilnadu Deputy Chief minister also caught in your camera in the middle of the road. Congrats and good combination of your shots.

Yes, that thali was very nice, filling. Apart from the items mentioend by me it also had Icecream. Kids simply liked the food there so much that we went for lunch there the next day as well.

:)

Yes, we should be proud of our country as we are blessed with all these things by mother nature. there are countries in the world where many of these does not simpy exist.


Going forward with Mysore.. I add here some information about Mysore for adademic interest.

Our objective was to experience as many of these things as possible while we are in Mysore.

But we could visit only the Main Ambavilas Palace this time. My family had previously seen Jagmohan Palace as well. We also visited Mysore Zoo and Chamundi Hills.

Ladies experienced Mysore Silk and manage ot empty our wallets. We experienced Mysore Pak and Mysore Masala Dosa as well.

We saw several Mysore paintings inside the Mysore Palace. We could not photogrpahs the inside of the palace as it is banned.

Star, Excellent story written with great passion and interest. Certainly must have been a great experience. I really admire the attention you have given to every minute detail in planning, and then taking time to write all those in such detail here is amazing! Keep it up.

Thanks LondDrive lover, for your kind words of appreciation. This story is dedicated to the three kids who were in the trip. This is being written so that we all can read it once they grow into young adults.


Staying with Mysore Palaces, I attach here some description of different palaces of Mysore. These descriptions and photographs were found on wikipedia, i will post the images taken by us later on.

Ambavilas Palace
-------------------
This is the main palace of Mysore and also termed as Mysore Palace. This palace was built in the year 1912 at a cost of Rs. 41.5 lakh in the Indo-Sarcenic style.

The earlier wooden palace that existed at this location got burnt in a fire during the wedding of Jayalakshammanni, the eldest daughter of Chamaraja Wodeyar, in February 1897.

The architect of this palace was Mr. Henry Irwin and the consulting engineer was Mr E W Fritchley.The palace is a three storied structure with the tallest tower with a gilded dome rising to 145 feet above ground. In the first floor is the grand Durbar hall, where the kings used to hold their assembly.

Some of the other important halls within the palace are Kalyana Mantap (the wedding hall), Gombe Thotti (hall of dolls) and Amba Vilasa (private hall). Life-like paintings, murals, arms, trophies, stained glass windows and decorated domes enhance the arhcitectural splendour of this palace. This is the center of all festivities during the Dasara.

Jaganmohan Palace
-------------------------
Jaganmohan Palace was built in the year 1861 by Krishnaraja Wodeyar III in a predominantly Hindu style to serve as an alternate palace for the royal family.

This palace housed the royal family when the older Mysore Palace was burnt down by a fire. The palace has three floors and has stained glass shutters and ventilators. It has housed the Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery since the year 1915.

The collections exhibited here include paintings from the famed Travancore ruler, Raja Ravi Varma, the Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich and many paintings of the Mysore painting style.The Durbar Hall here was the place where the early convocations of the Mysore University were held. The hall also serves as an auditorium for staging cultural programmes.

Jayalakshmi Vilas Mansion
----------------------------
This palace was built in the year 1905 by Chamaraja Wodeyar for his eldest daughter Jayalakshmi Devi. This mansion has three wings and contains a series of twin Corinthian and Ionic columns, regal pediments and oval ventilators.

The mansion was originally built with a cost of Rs. 7 lakhs. This mansion was acquired by the Mysore University to house its post-graduate campus. It was renovated in the year 2002 from funding provided by Infosys foundation.

The main hall in this mansion is the Kalyana Mantapa which has an eight-petal shaped dome with stained glass windows with a gold-plated Kalasha(tower) at the top. A new gallery called as Writer's Gallery has been created in the Kalyana Mantapa hall that will exhibit personal items, photographs, awards and writings of renowned writers of Kannada.

A special illumination system has also been added to this heritage structure. This mansion is said to be the first university museum complex in the country.


Lalitha Mahal
----------------
The architect of this palace was Mr E W Fritchley. The palace was built by Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV in the year 1921 for the exclusive stay of the Viceroy of India. The palace is pure white in colour and is built in the style of Italian palazzo with twin Ionic columns and domes. It also has a sprawling terrace and landscaped gardens.

This palace has now been converted into a five-star hotel belonging to the Ashok Group of Hotels. The interior of this palace contains venation marble floors, rosewood furniture and a stately balustrade staircase. The central hall in the palace contains life size portraits of the royalty, lithographs, motifs, a Belgian glass dome and carved wood shutters. An ancient elevator, still in working condition is also present.

Rajendra Vilas
----------------
This is a palace atop the Chamundi Hill. This was conceived in the 1920s and completed in the year 1938-1939. This was built as a summer palace for the Wodeyar kings. This palace is currently owned by the current scion of the royal family, Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar. There are plans to convert this into a Heritage hotel.

Cheluvamba Mansion
---------------------
This mansion was built by Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV for his third daughter, Cheluvarajammanni. It now houses the CFTRI (Central Food and Technological Research Institute).

After a sumptuous royal lunch, we decided to go first to see the royalty first hand.

I had visited Mysore palace 3-4 times before, i was eager to visit again.
We parked the chariot in the parking lot, walked through the near by row of shops which sell artifacts, toys, etc and reached the gate and ticket window. We bought the entry tickets, deposited the cameras in the locker, collected the key, went to the footware stand, deposited the footware, collected the token and entered the palace.

The walk around tour of the palace is approx 30-45 minutes. it could be more depending on one's interest. There are sevral royal artifacts, painting, photographs, utencils, statues, gifts received by the royal family, the history depictions, chairs, tables used by the kings etc inside the palace. It is a treat to the eyes. I was happy that the palace is well maintained. The details are already getting blurred. May be next time when i visit the palace, i need to carry a voice recorder where i can leave comments that can be used to remember at a later date.

We (once again) bought some ready snaps of the palace, a book which talks about history of the Mysore kingdom and a DVD.

We did not visit the Jaganmohini palace which is behind the main palace, but collected the footware, visited the Cauvery emporium, took some snaps etc and spent some time in around the palace.

Here are some snaps we took near the palace. After spending some time, we once again went back to the parking lot, from where my friend bought some cowboy hats to be given as gifts to his friends, we had a cup of tea from the tea stall and boarded the vehicle and asked Asif bhai to take us to the Zoo.

I had taken a quick peek at your travelogue a couple of days ago and had added it to my Sunday to-do list.

Went through it at a liesurely pace today and enjoyed it thoroughly. I liked the great start and the superb narration.

Thank you for a really enjoyable travelogue.

Amazing. Mysore is one place which I can never get tired of. The place symbolizes "time-a-plenty" for every thing...

You can laze around for hours.... Eat at all the places and go around to all the garden, lakes, palaces..... Weekends are just fun !

Great snaps also. I have already read the other parts of your travelogue, but could not resist writing about Mysore :)

A comment by a friend of mine is just apt. He said:

If you say Bangalore is laid back wait till you get to Mysore !

Thanks hotstuff, for taking time out to read this thread and appreciating.
I also saw several of your "Xinging to ..." travelogues
i was amazed that you have been to so many places in south India and have immaculately documented all your travels. I intend to go through some of them when i find time.

Yes, Mysore is very laid back and i also find it a great place to freqent, one never gets enough of it. Thanks for reading this thread and for your comments.

Moving on with the ZOO, Mysore Zoo was my favourite when i was a kid. I have visited this Zoo over 3-4 times in last 3 years. I love the animals there. I also see that several people have adopted the animals.
I admire those people who have made their commitments.

I will let the pictures speak for itself. I sincerely hope, homosepians need not meet the fate of these animals anytime in distinct future.

Attaching more pictures from the Zoo as the previous post could take max 30 pictures only.

again pictures are self explanatory.. We had some coconut water inside the zoo. We exited the Zoo some time past 6 PM. Zoo generally closes entry by 5 PM, the visitors are required to move out by 6 PM.

That was a looong one. Great travelogue with amazing variety. Cheers.

Eventhough, it was a 9 day trip, it took me over a month to pen down my thoughts into this travelogue due to several other priorites, i lived up to my commitment at the begining of the thread that i will be slow in posting the details, but i had not thought to be this slow..

Any way.. thanks for visiting, reading and appreciating


So continuing the story...

We were really tired after walking around the mysore zoo. It was time to go to a hotel. but we had not booked one yet. So as a option decided to visit Dasprakash and check. Asif Bhai drove us to Dasprakash after taking help from human - local language assisted - GPS service, couple of
times.

The reception guy asked for the details, enquired about the family status, checked the register to locate the un-occupied rooms, rang the bell to summon an assistant, asked him to show us the rooms. The ladies approved the rooms, so we registered the booking at the receiption and moved into the rooms. Asifbhai was also required to register himself and his vehicle and got himself a decent enough bed. It was ~ 7 PM. We asked him to take the rest of the year off, wished him happy new year, asked him to be ready by 8 AM and went into our respective rooms.

We requested for some hot water and were promptly provided for. We all took bath, got refreshed and ready for the walk out side by 7:45 PM. We enquired about the famous silk sari shop at the reception and were given 3-4 names and some directions. Ladies decided to check the nearest one
So for next over an hour+ time, we boys were simply ignored by the girls and eventually asked us to make the payments. This was indeed a pocket emptying experience part I.

Decided to eat at the Dasprakash resturant itself, waked back, ordered the food consisting of mysore specialities viz Puliogare, Puri bhaji, Masala dosas etc Once again kids enjoyed their favourites, my friend's family liked the Puliogare very much. There was a discussion about how to make it, i am sure they will experiment it once they return.

So the year was slowly coming to an end. The year was full of ups and downs, big disappointments and small successes, tough and challenging w.r.t the business, but provided enough time for family and friends, the year when i had bought my second (dream) car, we had several vacations, couple of medical emergencies, a great end to the year.

So we decided to call it a year and retired to our respective rooms. My friend returned to his e-mails, very tired kids just went into their dreams, i went back to my thoughts of anticipating how the new year would be, opportunities and challenges i might have to face, how i am required to respond, short term priorities and TO-DO list etc etc. Ladies continued their summit talks being on the sofa couch at the hall out side our rooms.

By the time the year 2009 ended it's reign and new year 2010 took over, I might be in my first or second dream..

Hi Star,

I have been reading your log since beginning but never really posted reply. This one liner from one of the bike ads that MS Dhoni endorses would tell you what I feel about your log, its variety, photos and narration and about you "Star hai tu to yaar".

Thanks very much Advait for reading the log. I always used to be confused to the fact that the thread had so many views, but very few comments. now I know..

Other than the screen name / handle on this forum, there is nothing "Star" about me. i am just another person who likes small pleasures of life.
This is first time i am trying at penning down a seperate travelogue.
I feel happy that all of you are liking it. Thanks for your appreciation.


Moving to the new year side of the story....

As regular, woke up at 6 AM from my sleep, both wife and daughter were still in their sleep. Realized that it is a new year day, Tried to wake up the remianing two, but they simply ignored and continued to remain in their posture. After 20-25 minutes of trying, both of them opened
their eyes. I told them that it is a new year, wished them a great year ahead, asked them get up,get ready so that we can go to the Chamundi Hills early.

Eventually everybody left the bed by 6.45 AM. by 7 AM, the neighbouring kids were knocking the door and asking my daughter to come out to play with them. Eventually we got ready by 7:30 Am, had our breakfast in the resturant, checked out, moved out luggage to the vehicle. Asif bhai was ready, having washed and cleaned his vehicle ready to go. We eventually started at 8:30 AM towards Chamundi hills.

I think, the climb took some 15-20 minutes, The parking was already full. We started climbing the stairs barefooted. Bought some offerings viz Coconut, fruits, flowers etc for the godess on the way, when we reached the temple, found that it had long queue already. There were three
queues viz. Dhamadarshan (= free entry), Normal Entry (=entry fee of RS 10 or 20 ??), Special Entry (entry fee of RS 100), Surprisingly the ticket queue for special entry was longer than normal ticket window. We found that the Free entry and normal fee queues were very very long.

We estimated that if we stood in those queues we would spend the whole day there itself. So stood in the queue fo special entry to buy the ticket. But some people who think they are very smart and very dear to the godess kept on ignoring the people who stood in the queue and
went to the people who were near the ticket window and managed to get into the queue or gave them the money to buy the tickets. Even though the people in the queue objected to it, these people were so shameless, they started fighting with the people in the queue.

So eventually after some 30 minutes in the queue, i could buy the tickets. Godess seems like the youngerl kids so there was no entry fee for kids (below 10 years i think). Then we moved towards the queue of poeple who were waiting to enter the temple.

This queue was almost 200 meters. Same behaviour was found in this queue also. After spending some 30 minutes in the queue we were about to enter the temple door. One very smart (= in marathi we call them Deed Shana = 1.5x smart) guy just came and stood in front of me. Naturally i objected. He had such an audacity to push me back and his body language was as if he wanted to have a wrestling match with me, it appeared as if the guy wanted to hit me.

Eventually I thought "Why I am here ?.. to take the belssings of the godess for the new year, so i do not want to get into any man handling or
fights", so I dis-engaged (ofcourse with disgusting feeling about the behaviour of the person)

After the main door, all the queues merged. It was vertually a stampade inside. A lone security guard was trying to streamline the crowd. Naturally he was not successful. Smarter people kept on coming in from the oppposite side (=exit side of the door). By the time (after another 30-45
minutes) i faced the god mother chamundi, i was disgusted of this experience, all the positive thoughts vanished from the mind, i could not offer my prayers as per my wish, i could not even look into the eyes of the godess even for a moment, the priest snatched the offerings from my
hand, returned the prasadam using his other hand, lady guard just pushed me towards the exit door.

So the efforts (=struggle) of almost 90 minutes ended in re-inforcing my belief that i should pray from my home and i should not visit any of these commercialized temples.

I remembered a famous marathi abhang "Deva devarhya tha nahi, Deva nahi Devalayee.." (= God does not reside in the place of worship, God is not even in the temple...) This abhang concludes that God is every where, most importantly, it is within us. So being at peace with oneself is the best prayer one can offer to the god/godess.

At the exit.. police had arrived...now the lesser among the smarter people were either arguing with the policemen, more smarter among them were still entering the temple via exit lane. Life goes on....May the Godess shower her best belssings on these smart, smarter and smartest people.

With that wish we moved on. Took some photographs. a customery one with Mahishasura, the demon killed by mother chamundi. The wave of pilgrims was rising. we slowly walked back to the parking lot, got into the car, started driving towards the Nandi.

Some pictures of Chamundi Hills attached here..