A Tourist Day

For the past several days, I was busy with the sightseeing in Mysore. I will go through my experiences along with the pictures. The first place I visited is the temple on top of Chamundi Hill. This is an interesting visit. I have been to several temples before, and none of which required me to take the shoes off and go barefoot. Secondly, when we finally enter the temple to see the holy idol, we couldn’t get closer to the idol. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera that morning, so I don’t have any pictures I could post here. After the temple visit, we went back to SDM and practiced yoga. I have to admit that the yoga helped me to relax a bit especially due to the tight schedule we have throughout the weekend. Our next destination is the Mysore Palace.

This place is unreal. It is even more phenomenal at night time when all 96,000 lights are lit (I will post some night pictures later). Once I entered the palace, I couldn’t help myself, but kept looking up at the ceiling and was completely astonished by the amazing art this palace had. And yes, I have to go barefoot in the palace again, that was a first.

After the palace, we went to the St. Philomena church. I believe this church is the oldest church in Mysore. We didn’t spend much time here.

Next, we had the lunch at the Tipu Sultan’s summer palace. This palace is a different from a normal palace. This palace does not have any kitchen or bedrooms because this is purely for meeting only. Although the palace does not have a kitchen, we still managed to have a lunch at the palace, only we picnic in the garden. After this visit, we went to the bird sanctuary. You cannot believe that only 1 hour outside of Mysore is this beautiful sanctuary. There were so many big bats that I have never seen before. At first, I was in doubt whether these are bats or not. Their size could certainly be birds if one looks from a distance. I also saw some migrated birds from America. The tour guide told me that these birds do not need passports to enter the country, which I thought these birds really make this world flat, since there's nothing could stop them from coming and going to a different country. I wonder if the U.S. government and the Indian government need to sign some sort of treaty to allow these birds to freely enter a country like the goods and services treaties that they always signed between the nations : ) This is not it. When I got into the boat for a boat ride, I got so close to a crocodile that I have never come so close before in my life. It was exciting and nerve-racking experience!

Well, my next destination was Brindavan gardens. This was a busy place. Since this place charge for taking camera in, the group decided to count on Rajiv for pictures. We were just in time for sunset at the KRS dam. It was gorgeous! It was close to 7pm when we left the Brindavan gardens and we have to rush back to Mysore Palace again to see the lights lit. I can’t believe what’s in front of my eyes (just see the pictures below).

That’s it for my busy tourist sightseeing in Mysore and I have to get ready for my next journey to Kabini River Lodge.