Mysooroo

YAYYY!!!!!!!!!!

Our gang of 3 monkeys ( Kumar appa, Thalavi amma and Sahana pappu ) hopped into the car to head to Mysore. We were thrilled as it was our first trip together as US 3 and a getaway from the routine city chaos. More importantly appa woulld get more time with his lil pappa.

Starting time: 9 AM on Saturday 21st 2010

We had an Insta monsoon package for 2nights booked prior to the trip @ Ginger Hotel -A TATA enterprise. It cost us Rs. 3K.

DAY 1:

We drove through outer ring road and stopped at MacD to have a snack. We reached Mysore at 1:15 pm , our target time and lunched at Hotel Siddharth. Pappu feasted on gobi manchurian and as usual engaged herself in doing mr.bean ritual. We stepped in the hotel at mid noon and checked into our retiring unit - Room #303. After unpacking the bags and resting awhile we headed to do some shopping at Cauvery Emprorium an KSIC silk emporium. The silk sarees were available in a variety of colours and the collection ranged between 5k-20k. The Cauvery emporium housed lots of artifacts. We ended up buying 3 bags full of different goodies. The pouring rain was a dampener but we managed to take few shots infront of the beautifully lit Mysore Maharaja Palace. We had our dinner and returned to ginger hotel to rest for the night.



DAY 2:

The iternary for second day was Lalith Mahal Palace, Chamundi Hills & Brindavan. After a scrumptious breakfast @ the hotel, we went to the palace where the gaurd asked us to pay up 50 bucks for clicking photos and seeing the palace from outside. We took turns and posed for the photos. Sree tried to pull the guard's leg by asking for reciept which made that guy fumble. We had a light cackle and headed towards the chamundi hills, our next destination.

The ride through the hills brought our munnar trip reminiscence in front of our eyes. We parked our car and stayed in the car for half an hour cuz Pappu was taking her power nap. The pavement to the temple was housed by shops on either sides. Lots of colourful items for people of all ages were heaped in the shops. After seeking the Goddess blessings we stopped at the shops to buy titbits and climbed down the hill to reach Nandi staue midway. We prayed to Bull god for peace and happiness and drove to the city to tame our roaring tummies.

We had our lunch at Guru Residency and went to the hotel as it was pouring cats and dogs. In the evening we made a good decision to drive to Brindavan gardens ans we found that this outing had made our day and started cheering us up after the monotonous gloomy weather. We crossed the the lake at Brindavan gardens through boat and witnessed the colourful dancing fountains. It was only a portion of the garden and most of the garden was closed. Whatever, we enjoyed the secninc garden view in the late evening. We had our dinner at Crystal park inn where pappu literally pulled the roof down wailing for her missing 'kambaadi kambaadi'- her favourite comforter. The day ended with pappu falling asleep first and us watching vinnai thandi varruvaya on laptop @ our #303.

DAY 3:

The day kicked off with us all set to go to meet our replicas @ Mysore zoo. We bought the tickets for the special van ride which will take us around the zoo for 1 hour. We spotted wide range of animals like the magestic tigers ( 6 of them), leopards, bengal white tiger, elephants, deep in thought gorilla, chimpanzee, bison, giraffe, zebra, cobra, parakeets, spotted deer, crocodile, lion and lioness and so on.... the zoo was very well maintained in par with the international zoos...cheers to the zoo keepers...

Next, we headed to the Karanji kere where we took a boat ride. After lunch @ RAmanashree, we decided to go for a long drive to Shivanasamudram.On the way, after T. Narasipura instead of taking a turn to Kollegal we wrongly took the way through Talkad and landed up driving a stretch of about 20 odd kms in a kachha road. We reached Barri Chukki falls at 5ish in the evening and ate some churmuri and took a family snap at the lovely waterfalls. Since there were no streetlights, we took an U turn and tried to reach Mysore ASAP. We had a south indian tiffin @ green leaves and dropped flat on our beds @ #303 sooner.

DAY 4:
We made up our minds in the morning to extend the trip for a day. Being the last day, we had a yummy tiffin at the hotel and checked out at 10. We travelled to Ranganthittu where we captured some nice snaps,Sangama river, Tipu Sultan tomb
before heading to namma Bengaluru. On the way we had lunch at Adigas and bought plenty of wooden toys for 3 of us and reached home amidst a bustling traffic at 5 in the evening.

Interesting Finds:
People and specially autowallas were very couteous in Mysore.
Mysore roads have small circle, big circles, only circles and circles....
No signals at all with people haphazardly zooming off..
Food was unexpectedly so cheap.
Mysore city had lot of grenery and was neat.

Lessons:
Not to tax oneself and take precautions as we travel
Splurge on everything as the weather brightens up
Heed your head and heart and most importantly your tummmy.


OVERALL : PERFECT GETAWAY - SOooooo ReFreSHINggg!!!!!!!!
Ideal time to spend would be 4 days( To cover Mysore tourist spots and all surroundings spots.)