Mysore day 3 - animal

On the third morning we arose early and, en route to the tourist office, we passed a drive-thru macdonalds: regrettably late did the idea of taking our tuktuk through cross my mind. We had signed up to a tour of various sights around/outside the city - the guide had other ambitions, considering it as an opportunity to take us around his cousins' shops.

Having left the decaying art museum, we were taken to a silk "museum" which had a curious desire to sell its display pieces. Next stop was the zoo, which had a fantastic array of empty cages - becoming increasingly hot and bothered, I couldn't stand many more photo requests: "we're in a zoo, there are other animals to take photos of." (Note the subconscious influence of the intense German man from Kochi). On the way to lunch, we stopped outside a small palace which our guide explained was the birthplace of the last prince of Mysore - nowadays, however, it doesn't even pose as the promised "museum", and is quite plainly a tack shop. Shameless.

Post-thali we ascended the Chatamudi hills outside Mysore, atop of which sat a golden temple housing a spectacular shrine covered in garlands and silver. There was also a Humungous statue of Nandi the bull, the 4th largest in India according to our tour guide, who was clearly fascinated by it: "Get out. Take photo. We leave."

We left, and Lissy dropped out due to her illness - clutching Lonely Planet tightly to my chest, my bottom lip trembling, I ventured onwards alone. Except for the American girls, who turned their nose up at an impressive, unexpected cathedral (there was a creepy crypt in which the deceased's name was usually qualified by their job, eg: A.Patel, driver to Mr Alton).

Our last stop was Srirangapatnam, a fort town which was destroyed by the British in 1799 following a huge war against the sultan Tipu. Post-colonial guilt abounded as I was shown drawings of the battles by an impromptu travel guide, who would follow me to every exhibit and read the attached label in a wise, albeit laboured, English voice: "sword. Halberd. Destruction." The main temple in town was preparing for a festival the day after, with fantastical floats that'd be drawn by elephants!

In the evening we ventured to an advertised "light and sound" show at the Palace - although it was pretty awesome to see the palace illuminated, we didn't realise the "sound" would be a story told in hindi... The rest of the audience were loving it, literally yelling out, so it must have been pretty fantastic. At the end, the hundreds of thousands of bulbs that cover the palace were switched on - a truly awesome sight.

We finished our stay in Mysore with dinner in a beaut restaurant, stealing copious amounts of loo roll to justify the bill which (like our stomachs) was swelled by the pasta we'd ordered.

With love