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-   -   Tipu looted Kerala, Malabar annexes Mysore (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/89171-tipu-looted-kerala-malabar-annexes-mysore-3.html)

Man that was quite an action packed day! After the waterfall, I thought you guys may not have relished the fountain! But unwinding in the garden is always some fun!

We relished the fountain? Unwinding in the garden? The fact that we had the legs and the mind to get in there, I thought we were game for it. But it was like going through the assembly line, set-pieces, people just released from Tihar.

We were better wound. Unwinding was done only at the MMK Lodge.

Were you there on a weekend? Weekends, IMO, are the worst time to go there. The best time to enjoy the gardens would be on weekday evenings.

Night is not that impressive - its so glum - a shopping city street is much better lit and more vibrant than this. Where are the flowers? I cant remember, which implies there are not many. One will have to take a leave on a weekday and spend time in broad daylight.

Day 2: Sept 11, 2010

We woke up at 6 a.m and our guide LP had pointed to Mylari at Nazarbad Rd for breakfast. But before that some hot water was needed for the inmates of 105, MMK Hotel. I get out and walk out to the balcony and what do I see? Wow! We were at a great location. We could not see the location well the previous night when we had checked in.







I called out for the hotel staff to provide us with some hot water. He said it would come in the left tap after throwing away a bucket of water. I could not wait neither wifey. Neha was fortunate to get some of it. All packed. Fresh as a Lilly! We move. The morning mist and a slight drizzle amidst green valley. I had just longed for it. So different than a Chennai morning. It was a pleasurable drive into Mysore city.







We hit the statue junction. Hey great broad tree lined roads of Mysore and I asked people - "How about immigrating to this place?". First answer - Yes, indeed. But what if we wanted to get out of the city - travellers that we are. Ooohh "I love Chennai"! And we asked for Nazarbad road so that we could reach the Mylari hotel. It was a worn-out pothole-ridden street, muddy waters in them. We navigated through it and found a few Mylari hotels. So we started to look for the "Vinayaka" prefix as mentioned by LP. Wifey found one. But the straight-face name board had it as "Original Mylari Hotel". Its a small place. Wifey was not very sure that we had actually reached the right place. We got in and wow! It was great stuff indeed. Idlis and the dosai. A different experience I must say. Btw, whats Mylari? Is it in all KA towns?





Our next stop would be the Chamundi hills. I was looking forward to some great views from atop the hill. But I had my doubts with the misty weather around.

We encountered one of the better roads as we drove up the hill. It was a great feeling. All enjoyed the drive upwards.






Here is where the Kerala folks were around. Firstly at the car park. All the jeeps and car were having the KL registration. There were folks who were
taking bath in the wash rooms available at the car park. We move onto the temple. A good darshan.







Moved down and we saw the Bulls road. Initially we had thought of walking down but then took the easier way of just driving.

It was 9:45 am by the time we left the Bull. Btw, the initial number on the tooltip of each snap tells the time the snap was taken. Now we were to get back to the city and get to the Zoo. This is one place the girls were looking forward to seeing. Mom wanted to see the Lion and daughter to run around the whole walk area in the Zoo. We reached the Zoo area by following the sign boards after we got down the hill. As we were approaching the Zoo, we saw lot of KL cars/jeeps again parked. I missed the parking gate and circled around once and then got in. It was fully occupied the Kerala folks again. Ticket counter the same.



Got in and we could just hear Malayalam. Then it struck us - it was Eid and Malappuram (KL) with a huge muslim population was just across Gundlupet/Gudulur. They had come over the hills in the numbers. All of them with new clothes, mostly in the 15-30 age group. They were all enjoying the holidays. It was a festive atmosphere. I am not posting the pictures of the animals and bore you all, but I would definitely post the snaps of the Lion.




Not impressive was the verdict! Wifey had mentioned long back that the Mysore Zoo is cool with lot of animals and the Lion is a ferocious one and roaring and this and that. Now we know why she was disappointed. Neha asked me to click the photo of the tree-trunk below. What she liked was that it could open up from the bottom just like a box. We spent 10 to noon in the Zoo.



Next stop: Just close to the Zoo is the Karanji lake. Very impressive walk-way and it was less crowded than the Zoo. We could just walk in for the boating. With the cool/drizzling weather made the peacock to dance as well. There is an eating area in there. Neha liked the Noodles. We were out at 1:30 pm.






Now we were hungry. LP says Hotel Siddharth - Restaurant Om Shanti. Good/ Fast meals for 50 bucks. There was huge crowd waiting for their tourist bus just outside the Hotel.



Then we thought of going to the Church and then to proceed to Srirangapatanam from there. The church is really magnificient. What an architecture. We started towards Srirangapatna at 2:30 pm and took the Bangalore route SH. On the SH we took the turn to Ranganathittu instead of going further a bit ahead to get into SGP. I asked wifey if she would like to get into the bird sanctuary. No way - she said. We had just come from the Zoo and the lake and there were loads of birds which we had seen. So skip it and move forward. So saw all the standard stuff. We were asked to go across the road and see Sangam/Summer-palace/Gumbaz before coming back to the temple/mosque on this side of the SH.



We went till the end of the road to Sangam first. We were greeted with the sign board which had mallu as well. When we reached Sangam, we saw the coconut-water vendor asking "Karikk veno?" Perfect mallu accent, though he was a local and mentioned the above in Kannada to others whom he knew were locals of from KA. Amongst the same shops another boy spoke in mallu. And I am sure he had just adapted and learnt mallu. Then I realized maybe it was not just because of EID, Mysore is a generic haunting place for Keralites. I saw quite a few KL auto-rickshaws as well.

After Sangam, we went to Gumbaz, Summer palace, Mosque/Temple (on this side of the road.) At all places we had to pay up for slippers, parking, entry fee and all in the Rs.10/20 range. We almost cried to the last guy who asked for it near the temple and so we did not visit the temple - paying for praying! No way. I dont know if the money is landing up at the correct place similar to the CWG. At all places the crowd was 95% mallus.








So after 2.5 hrs in Srirangapatna and the clock saying 5 p.m we thought we should pitch a tent. We reached town and enquired - according to what LP said - Dasprakash close to Gandhi circle. He asked almost double than what LP said. Initially he said only A/C rooms are available. A little probing and he said non-AC available. Hmm! However with this attitude of the hoteliers we moved out. There were a couple of more hotels we got in - one on RR and the other in downtown Mysore. We thought of going back to the hotel where we stayed the previous night and had liked. So it was going to be the KRS road. It was getting dark and with the huge traffic lined up on the Mysore-KRS road, we were a bit scared. Did all the mallus take our rooms at MMK? Will we get a room. Luckily as we were parking we explained to the familiar faces about our decision to come back. We followed the same routine as we did the previous night. We all enjoyed our chicken-curry/chappati. Now the inmates of the hotel were all mallus.

Day 2 ends.

Day 3: Sunday - 12th Sept 2010:

As the previous day, get up at 6 am.

6:37 - We hit the road again towards Bangalore. We take our chance and on the KRS-Mysore road we take the road towards Ranganathittu since we had since it the previous day and we knew we could reach the SH17 from there.



Sunday market for wood/livestock - would love to live this way:



More sugarcanes...


Ranganathittu - We had seen this yesterday


Railway track again, there was a guy selling malli-malas (Jasmine). Guess the cost? Yes, correct. Rs.10/- We had a nice laugh. Anything here is in multiples of 10.



7:49 - Welcome to Sugar City - Mandya. Now we understand all those sugarcane loading stuff.

8:20 - Breakfast at Adigas




9:30 - Bidadi railway station


At 10:20 we were at the town hall and were searching for our way to CV Raman Nagar. There was an auto guy who helped us and we were at S.G.Palaya at 10:59 am. On our way we had a close shave (mentioned in another post in the forum a few days back) and almost hit 2 kids on 6th main connecting 80 ft to 100ft.


It was a surprise to wifey's cousin. It was her birthday too and so double-surprise. Neha had a gala time playing with Kannan and Kunju-vava. Myself and wifey went for a quick-shopping (11:30 PM) for vegge/chicken for a lunch of chicken-65/pepper-varattayithu.




3:00 PM - Off on our way to Chennai. Quick check on the net for the route in between all the car-games Kannan was playing and explaining to Neha and Kunju-vava.

So, it was to be OMR (Not the Chennai OMR) Old Madras Road (NH4), K.R.Puram Station, ORR, Sarjapur Road, Hosa Rd onto the BETL, NH7 to Krishnagiri, NH46 to Walajapet, NH4 to Poonamalle, Mt-Poonamalle to Kathipara flyover, Anna Salai to Chinnamalai, Taluk office road, SP Road, Velachery Main Rd, 100ft Bypass Road, V-T Road.

ORR:


On the Hosa Road, we saw a T-BHP sticker car, red Ritz KA03-M?-?47? Wow - we were very excited and slowed down and looked back. We have not got our stickers as yet. This was at 3:49 PM.

BETL:



What is this Paper-Plane? 3:55 PM.



Just after Krishnagiri - the goat hitting incident - another post in the forum.


There is a BP bunk - we found at 4:40 PM.

At 5:28 PM it got dark and it rained quite heavy for 20 sec and thats it. The shortest heaviest rainfall I have ever seen.



We saw lamp posts at odd median locations. Is this used as a stop sign when there is human traffic? Any clue?




Finally at 6:21 pm we saw the toll-gate to be very crowded so much so that people were impatient - mainly the state transport buses who tried big-time to squeeze into the lanes to get out of the toll the earliest. I had a small tiff with the KA bus conductor saying "Hog Ri". Had picked up a bit with 2 days in KA :)


We reached home at 10 PM. The last stretch was a bit nervous. This is where some of our previous trip logs helped us in figuring the next petrol bunk and where we were tensed for quite some time driving with the reserve lit on!

Crash! Monday morning, it was business as usual as if nothing happened and everyone's doing their set roles, moving on the conveyer belt as mechanical pieces. Did we dream it all?

Dude! you have still not posted the snaps or evidenced the relation between title and your travelogue. Waiting to hear :).

1. All the snaps in Link 36 / Link 37 has mallus in it except for two snaps the wow/chamundi-Police-Outpost!
2. I saw 5 KL-10 autos.
3. The entire car park of the Zoo, Chamundi hill, all Srirangapatna points - Day2 - only had mallus. Believe me! I was dying to meet a local.
4. There was one mallu board shop and the "Sangam" was written in Mallu. Believe me!
5. There were two locals who were selling stuff. Both had learnt Mallu - "karikk venno?" "chetta ivide varoo". Believe me.

Nice and crisp travelogue to go with the lovely pictures, I travel to Mysore very often and liked reading your experiences there.

Thanks kannan666. I thought of finishing it off in one or two goes, but just writing about the route, road-conditions, stay, eating, sights for 3 days and 14 hrs a day, takes quite some posts and patience and cropping the snaps to small sizes so that people can load faster, selecting the right ones, no over-kill, only needed snaps. Info dissemination for others who need.

Jeevmenon thats a awesome travelouge. I have just one question for you, How did you maintain such a accurate log on the road conditions?

Thanks ElantraGT. OK. Now, thats a good leading question where I can do some canvasing of my other threads.

There were other parallel threads to which I wrote about this Mysore trip: how the humps actually made us so paranoid (maybe it was because of having the pre-conceived notion that the Bangalore-Mysore was too good.) Anyway about the logs, log-guru HVK also had a few words to say about the extensive logging. After the year long surfing by both and wifey we were very keen to contribute to the forum with logs so that it helped others. We had a tiff as well along the route. Even today we had a laugh as to who cares if there are 5 humps or 6 humps between X and Y :)

Prep for the Mysore trip. Picked up an other thread and took it from page 2 to 6 asking about the alternatives to reach Mysore from Chennai. Too obsessed with taking the Mettur-Kollegal route.

Bumped up another old thread about removing stones from the middle of the road while driving. Believe me, I knew about that thread after the incident.

Bumped up supremeBaleno's thread about my just missed experiences.

Hopefully there is no terminology for "bumping up threads via a bumper" - spump! Mentioning the above is not meant to be a spump but an attempt to link stories. Its just like the new-gen movies of understanding the movie only at the end when all the parallel sequences contribute. All the above links are linked to this main story line.

Hats off to you for taking such a meticulous work of jotting down the exact condition of the route. I am planning for a trip to hogenakkal and mettur in the near future. its been close to 15 years since I have been to mettur.