Our Mysore Trip (part 2)

Our first stop in Mysore was a spot of lunch. Daisy liked her noodles but mango dessert is always the winner! The waiters all loved her and bought her a 'side order of fries' for her mango! When we eat in a resturant we always get a lot of attention from the staff. We like the think it is because Chris and I are special but we know that it is all about Daisy. After lunch, I did manage a quick look in a silk emporium. Mysore is famous for it's silk, sandalwood and incense. It was all a bit expensive and I had Chris, Karsten, Daisy and even our driver all tapping their feet! Next stop...the palace.
This is the palace of the Wodeyar family of maharajahs that have ruled this area since 1565 until 1947 and Indian Independence. I think the family now lives out its days in the Bangalore palace. This palace was completed in 1912 after an earlier wooden palace burnt down in 1897. It was designed by English architect Henry Irwin. We weren't allowed to take photos in the main section of the palace which has a most magnificent wedding chamber. It must be nearly four stories high inside and has cast iron filigree buttresses and a gorgeous stained glass roof. Maybe Chris can find a link to show an existing photo of this room. The palace is very grand inside, almost over the top with carved pillars in each room and inlaid marble floors. Along a main corridoor are painting depicting life in Mysore during the edwardian raj. Included in these paintings were portraits of actual people, a lot of British officers and the like. There were a couple of portraits of King Edward and Queen Alexandria. The place had quite a roaring 20's feel to it. There was only a section of the palace opened, mainly around a stone courtyard which had two most magnificent bronze tigers standing guard. There were very similar to the one in the photo with Dais coming up. We soon found ourselves outside and herded into another area around behind the palace. This looked more like the original buildings as they were much older, or at least in a more dilapedated state. We had to take our shoes off to enter the palace and so we are now roaming the backyard of the palace without our shoes. In this area is where we found some camels and absolutely huge elephants! this was an opportunity not to be missed.
This is Chris and Karsten riding the elephant. Daisy and I are keeping a safe distance. We were not sure if you could take photos but the elephant man didn't seem to mind and even posed for some shots! Daisy was very quiet but eyes wide open and she didn't miss a thing.
The elephant ride was around the garden and through some of the buildings. In this photo the main palace to the the right of the elephant and the older palace where we were next heading is to the left. It was a lovely place and even though it was quite busy we were having a lovely time.

Our trip to Mysore begins

Our estimated time of departure was 7am, bright and early. We nearly made this too! We fed Daisy and threw her in the car only to discover about 100 metres down the road that she really doesn't like to travel on a full stomach so back to the apartment for a costume change for Daisy and Chris and hose out the back of the car and we were off again. Daisy fell asleep in my arms and stayed this way for the next few hours. We picked up a work mate of Chris's and headed out of town. It took us over an hour to reach the outskirts of Bangalore. The first change to the landscape were the appearance of these mountains. They were huge masses of rock. Chris and i argued over whether they were volancanic plugs left after erosion or huge rocks pushed up through the earths surface during a particularly violent earthquake or the such. The jury is still out! Though since Chris studied geography at uni he is probably right! More coconut palms started to appear and soon we found ourselves surrounded by them and rice paddies and watched as fields were ploughed by oxen and men walking behind them. The road was a lovely four lane highway, two lanes in each direction. This though didn't stop the occasional motorbike or rickshaw being on your side but heading in the opposite direction!! We are very pleased with our driver and felt that this wasn't his first trip to Mysore. He handled the traffic masterfully! We drove through villages and over huge bridges and ohhed and ahhed at the countryside. It was soo lovely to be out of the city. Our first stop, beside the coffee day coffee stop, was at a place called Srirangapatnam. This is the ruined capital of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan's capital from where they ruled much of southern India during the 18th century. In 1799 the british conquered them with the help of disgruntled local leaders. Tipu's defeat marked the real kick-off of bristish expansion in southern India. Our first stop in this village was to the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple. This was quite an impressive hindu temple. We have more video footage than photos of this place. It was quite a sight, not only the temple but the food stalls and 'carnival' that went with it. It is quite a tourist sight for Indians as well and again we stood olut like boils being the only white people. Our car was accosted by people volunteering to be our guides. One man was quite persistent and spoke good english so he was the chosen one. The road leading to the temple is filled with beggars, street sellers plying their wares, animals, the ever present dung and tourists. Inside the temple was cool and quiet. Our guide showed us around and again we got our foreheads hindi-ed. We departed with 300 rupees after refusing to pay his requested price and wandered back to the car. It was an ordeal to retrive our shoes as being white and tourists they want heaps of money for looking after our shoes at the entrance to the temples. We were also accosted by boys selling pencils and men selling necklaces. From the sidelines, men and women shouted for our attention to buy there things. One day I will buy a coconut drink where they chop off the top while you stand there and put in a straw for you to drink straight out of the coconut. It looks delicious. (I have just had my first bout of food poisoning so I am very wary again of all things)
Below is a picture of a typical food stall that lined the road side. I am not sure of what was battered and deep fried. I thought it might be pineapple but it wasn't this so I am not sure what is was. They would prepare food here and then beside this they had a bench wth seating that you ate at. All the places were quite busy with the locals. We didn't eat here!
Below is a picture of Raj our driver. Daisy thinks he is great because he plays teletubby videos in the car. Her face jsut lights up when she sees him and he thinks this is very cool. He is a very careful and competent driver and we are very pleased with him.
We visited another couple of sites in this village which is about 16 km's outside of Mysore. We went to the Gumbaz, which is a Taj looking building holding the tomb of Hyder Ali, Tipu's father. Then we drove to the summer palace of Tipu. After Tipu's death his wealth was redistributed around, though most of it went to the British. A lot of his treasures are in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The palace has been restored and there is a bit of a museum inside. Most of the rooms in the house only have one or two walls with rooms open onto other rooms or walkways. This makes for a very breezy and cool building. I can see why it was his summer palace. I stopped to feed Daisy in the cool some fruit and we were swarmed by well wishers wanting to touch her and take her photo so as soon as she finished we were on the move again. 

Leanne's Birthday Outing

Leanne's Birthday fell on a Tuesday and as I was owed some time off work we decided to spend the day sightseeing. Our first stop was lunch at a popular Chinese Restaurant in the city centre. We ate until we could eat no more and although Daisy managed to eat an enormous amount, she managed to get a far larger amount of food on the floor. You can see in the photo above that the high-chairs in the restaurant were simply chairs that are high. It's a sign that she's growing up that she can sit in a chair like that for a long period without toppling out.


After lunch we headed out to Bangalore Palace. It's said to be modelled on Windsor Castle and once inside it has a real sense of faded glory. We weren't sure at first whether we could look around as our trusty Lonely Planet guide said it was closed to visitors. This seems to be a bit out of date however as we were quickly issued with a guide and given a tour. Our reciept was made out to "Two Foreigners" which is probably the first time we've not had our names misspelt on a reciept so far!!



We're supposed to pay 500RS to take photos but our guide was happy for us to take one or two as we went around. When we get visitors we'll visit again and take more. The one below is a ballroom and it's one of the best preserved parts of the building. Just outside this room was a stuffed elephant head mounted on the wall; one of the maharajah's hunting trophies.


Later on in the tour we went into the Queen's quarters (that's the maharajah's wife; not Queen Victoria) which was acting as a store room whilst renovations are taking place. In there were a number of elephant feet which had been turned onto foot stools and a stuffed elephant's trunk!

At one time the palace would have been a very grand venue, but now the walls are faded and some wings need complete renovation. One day it will be restored to it's former glory, but strangely it's now that is the best time to visit. The current renovations will turn this palace into a museum and some of the charm will be lost in the process.


This large white building is the Vidhana Soudha. You can read more about it here. I liked the part in that article that reads "It is therefore one of the largest of the Legislative buildings and impresses many visitors as larger as and more beautiful than similar buildings in Australia, the United States and even Canada." Why 'even Canada'? Are they famed for legislative buildings of particular grandeur? Perhaps that's an angle that the Canadian tourist board needs to work on..?

The photo above was taken whilst en-route to the next palace on our journey, one of the summer palaces of Tipu Sultan.

This was a small palace, mostly open to the outside with modest but attractive gardens. This was located quite close to the city centre and was more geared towards tourists.


The final stop on our journey was the Lal Bagh. This is another of Bangalore's parks and contains a glasshouse modelled on London's Crystal Palace. The park is the prettiest we've seen so far and we'll have to return sometime and spend a bit more time there. Daisy fell asleep on the drive here and woke up as we were leaving so Leanne carried her around on her shoulder. Next time we'll bring a ball and a blanket and maybe have a picnic under one of the many trees.

Another week in Bangalore

This is a photo taken a while ago from the balcony of our apartment. As you can see we overlook the pool. I've only been swimming once but do intend to make more use of it once the weather heats up a bit.
We can once again see blogspot again. Seems that whatever prevented us viewing it has passed on and normal service has been resumed. Daisy's walking has come on in leaps and bounds. She loves to walk everywhere with her arms outstretched. Today we were at a late lunch with Leanne's expat group and there were kids everywhere. Not many were Daisy's age but she loved toddling in amongst them all the same.
I'll stop here for now. Next blog will be all about Leanne's birthday. I took the day off work and we went and saw the sights of Bangalore. Seems that there's more to the city than just office blocks. Perhaps it's not an Indian Bracknell after all... 

Daisy Walking

I don't think we can upload a video to the blog, so here's the next best thing. Daisy can walk for about three metres now before grabbing onto something or dropping to a crawl. It's very impressive and she knows how clever she is! 

Are we being censored?

There's something strange going on here. We can't see any of the blogs on blogspot.com. At first I read a notice on blogspot.com saying that there would be some routine maintentance and that the site would be unavailable for a short period. Then I read this article on the BBC news website.
So I've just connected through an a computer in America and I can see the blog fine. Yet if I use our home computer or my computer at work I get a "Page cannot be displayed" error.

This seems to affect all blogs on blogspot.com; not just ours. Let's hope that it's a glitch and that normal service will be resumed soon. If not, you can find your local Indian Embassy here!

Happy Birthday Leanne!

Happy Birthday To You!
Happy Birthday To You!
Happy Birthday Dear Leanne!
Happy Birthday To You!

 

Monsoon!

The last two afternoon have seen us with torrential rains! The monsoon has finally arrived, well it does for about half an hour and then back to cloudy days. There hasn't been thunder and lightening yet as when we first arrived but I am sure it will come. We want the rains now mainly to flush the little river that runs along the back of our apartment building. I am not sure if it is a natural river or an open sewer but if it doesn't rain and the water doesn't flow then it gets quite aromatic! More like the smells that physically reach up your nose and pull the hairs! Being on the 7th floor we seem to be above it most of the day. Anyway, the rains were lovely and it washed the streets and settled the dust and pollution. We were nice and dry in our car but there were lots of people, especially women on the backs of motorbikes that were drenched. The roads also flooded so getting home took a little longer than usual. Hopefully it will rain again and I will get some more photos. I am not sure if you can see detail on the blog but if you look closely at the front of the building you can see pale white stripes and this is the rain coming straight down. 

Photos from Daisy's Birthday

This was Daisy's morning birthday cake: a banana and chocolate chip muffin cooked by her mum. Suitable candles were in short supply so the closest we could get was a zero. Still, from the side it look like a 1...

Daisy loved her new teddy...

...and her new hat!

In the afternoon she went to a baby group in a very nice part of town. She had her second cake of the day there. She was a bit overwhelmed by all the attention, but she loved the toy kitchen in the background so we'll probably have to get her one for Christmas!

She has had some lovely cards and presents from around the world and had a wonderful day. This week she really seemed to grow up and is less a little baby and more a little girl. Happy first birthday Daisy Grace!

Happy Birthday Daisy Grace

Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday Dear Daisy!
Happy Birthday to You!

 

Where's the monsoon?

For the past two years Leanne's been saying that although she loves Britain, she can't wait to get to a hot country where the skies are blue and it's so hot that you have to spend all day sat under a palm tree by the pool. So, this morning, what was her gripe? That it's been sunny for too long and she wishes it would rain!!! Well, I can sort of see her point: it's supposed to be the monsoon. You've probably seen the pictures of the floods in Mumbai on the news, but it's a very different picture down here. Whilst the land isn't parched, we could really do with some sustained rains to make the fetid streams run freely and wash their waste away. Anyhow, she's under strict instructions not to complain about the weather -- it's absolutely perfect!


This photo was taken the morning of our temple visit and it shows the awful conditons that we're having to live under: sun, warmth, comfortable humidity. It's tough!
You can just about see our apartment in this photo. If you find the bonnet of the car in the background, then look directly up you may just make out a balcony on the 7th floor with a corner of an orange cushion showing. That's ours. Maybe the detail won't show on this blog but it gives an idea of where we are. 

The Leela Palace Hotel

This is the garden inside the Leela Palace Hotel. It's probably Bangalore's most exclusive hotel and is just over the road from our apartment.
Although construction on it only started in 1997 (and seems to still be going on in some places) it has an old colonial feel and is very very nice. So nice in fact, that Leanne comes every Thursday morning for morning tea with Bangalore's women's expat group. It seems to be a good place to come when the streets of Bangalore get too much. 

My Brave Husband!

This is Chris eating the bright yellow rice pudding out of a moulded leaf. He said it was very sweet. I don't think he ate it all! He is standing in front of the main temple area where we went inside adn the three stall with Krishna statues were. We weren't allowed to take cameras in so there are no photos inside of here. 

ISKCON Sri Radha Krishna Temple

'Hare Krishna, Hare Rama'
This afternoon we set off in our little rickshaw and met friends here at the temple. It is quite an impressive series of building climbing up a hill. With thousands of others, we lined up and were fed into the temple like cattle. At first we had to leave our cameras and Daisy's backpack with a man who gave us a tag and put our things behind his desk near a rack. This unsettled me and i worried aobut my camera for a little while until the experience that is the temple took over. We then moved to another desk where another man gave us a tag and we all gave him our shoes. We followed the others and wound our way up stairs and along pathways, all the while climing up the series of building and walkways. We were first led into a little room that had a priest laying flowers at a statue of Krishna. The statue was covered with candles and flowers. We then passed into another room with a similar priest. The priests have shaved heads with a little pony tail at the back and wear orange robes. They also have a stripe of white paint down between their eyes. We were finally led into the main temple. Apparently we had walked up a certain amount of steps which represent the journey to nirvana or the journey we must take to rid our lives of material things. The main temple was a huge room that inside reached up four or five stories. Around the upper levels were walkways with candles and oils burning that looked down into the main area. At the end were three stalls that contained statues of Krishna in three forms. The ceiling had a series of painting depicting Krishna when he lived on earth as a man. The paintings were in quite a romantic style, almost European masters in style and I was quite surpised to see this. We were led around the side of the main room and gave our names to a priest who chanted them and he said a prayer for all of us. He then gave us a little bowl of sweet minced food of some description. After this we filed in front of the three alters, stopping at the third. Here a priest said blessing on our behalf, and the other few thousand that were standing with us and blessed various bits of fruit, coconuts, bananas etc. We then moved around the side of the stalls were a lovely priest showed me how to bless myself using the heat from a candle. He then smiled broadly at Daisy and gave us some beautiful smelling white flowers. After this we moved back through the maze of buildings which all held various shops were we could buy religious things to help our journey. These included fantastic cashew and coconut biscuits ( which we thought would help our journey and bought some!) through to beads and incense. It really was quite a fascinating place. Daisy was very well behaved and sat quietly enough in our arms for us to be able to take it all in. It wasn't a particularly peaceful place but for the amount of people pouring in, it did a very good job of maintaining a form of serenity. Chris, Daisy and I stood out like shining beacons but for the first time it was in a lovely way and the priest took special care of us and made sure that we had a good experience. We were passing through the bookshop area when a man pulled our firends aside and said that we needed some books and he would give them to us for free so we were given a book on philosophy (it looks very similar to 'The Watch Tower' actually so may not get read) and another book on the philosophy of yoga which I will probably take to bed with me tonight. Although I am enjoying reading V. S. Naipur's Age of Darkness, about his travels in India at the moment. We then wandered through and watched, listened and smelt a whole range of things. There was food everywhere and some of it was free. Chris was terribly brave and ate some free soupy stuff which they handed out in a leaf, moulded into a bowl. It was like rice pudding but bright yellow. I didn't try any. I was eating the cashew biscuits! It was a lovely place that we didn't feel threatened, despite the amount of people in such confined spaces as the temple areas and grounds. We continued to eat our way around the temple grounds. Daisy wanted to be a part of it all! She ate popcorn, masala dosa (bread/pancake thing) cashew biscuits and washed it all down with fanta softdrink. She fell asleep in the rickshaw coming home. We then cooked her dinner of mushrooms and omlette and she has fallen sound asleep. What a lovely and interesting day. By far the best we have experienced yet. We are making plans now to visit more. 

On the Road Again

Today was Sunday and we find ourselves off and exploring again. This time we are heading to the Hare Krishna Temple in the north west of the city. We have caught another rickshaw into the main shopping area to meet friends of Chris's from work. From our rickshaw we took this photo. Livestock of one sort or another is everywhere here, on the roads, on the footpaths, in backyards, vacant blocks. There are cows of every level of fitness wandering the streets. Not so many as you might be led to believe but you would see one or two cows everytime you drive somewhere. I have seen some pretty skinny cows adn then a few beautiful, fat jersey cows with huge udders. I am not sure who looks after the wandering cattle or who would milk them. I think of this while I buy my longlife, fully homogenised milk from the shop. The locals buy milk from street sellers but they have to boil it before they can drink it. So I am not sure if it comes from farms or just some guy around the corner that has found a cow and milked it! I think this photo is of an oxen actually and I am not sure if they are sacred as well. I will have to do an internet search. You often come across these pulling carts in the main street or small horses pulling carts as well. Both these animals all seem very well cared for. Speaking of animals I must go and refill our mosquito killer things. They are little pads that we put into little plug things in the sockets. I have seen about five mosquitoes since we arrived but each of us has one bite to tell of. 

Commercial Street

This is the beginning of chaos as we ehaded deeper into local territory. Read a bit further on and it will tell of our adventures in this district 

An old man in Commercial Street

 

Into the Fire!

Today is Sunday and we have ventured out again. Chris was under the impression that Commercial Street was something to see and I feel bad that I didn't reiterate that it was just shops. Even I underestimated the level of 'shopping' that was Commercial Street! We felt like locals as we hailed an autorickshaw and headed into town. It costs 50 rupees and takes about 15 minutes. Being Sunday there was slightly less traffic and it was quite pleasant as it has been a bit cooler over the last few days. We arrived and threw ourselves into the furore. This is an area of the city where the 'locals' shop. At first we went into a few clothing shops and even bought Daisy a funky pair of trousers, we asked the price of lovely silk materials and checked out the bedspreads. All was quite pleasant apart from the lack of footpaths and the ever present smell of human waste and rotting something or other. We carried Daisy in her backpack which was lovely for us to have both hands available for balance and up on Chris's shoulders, kept her out of reach of most people wanting to pinch her cheeks. There were lots of ohhs and ahhs and the occasional face pinching but mostly she was out of harms way. We wandered the streets and headed deeper into local territory. The crowds started to increase and there were constant calls of 'you look my shop, no buying just looking'. If we stopped for too long we would find ourselves surrounded by beggars touching our arms to get our attention. It would take quite the striding out to keep up with Chris who would just leg it! There were brightly coloured saris and black bhurkas of the muslim women, cars beeping and us having to jump out of the way or else get run over! There were street urchins and dead rats! The road would have rivulets of some sort of fluid that we didn't want to contemplate the origin of too carefully. The smells would be smoke, dust, car fumes, the most sweet smelling flowers you have ever smelt, food smells, perspiration and the organic pungent aroma of rotting fruit. The shops were piled high on top of each other and I must say that by this time even a world shopper like myself no longer ventured into shops but just glanced over them as all our senses were being assaulted. We would often find a rickshaw driver would drive at us to get our attention which would force us onto the narrow labyrinth of roads and always into the path of some other on coming vehicle. There is transport of all types from brand new 4x4 to horse drawn carts to wooden trailers pulled along by there owners. Each vehicle is vieing for passage through the narrow streets. Everyone of the million or so people in the area are trying to survive. We saw palm readers and shoe menders, one man with some scales that you would pay to weigh yourself, beggars and men in immaculate suits of pure white. At the height of our sensory overload we found ourselves in the compound of a Catholic church, the Basillica of Mary. The area was laid out in true catholic style of gold plated everything and statues of saints behind glass available to be worshipped and adored. We found a lovely white statue of the Pia mater ( Mary with Jesus draped our her lap after being brought down from the cross) and it was covered in tuberrose and marigold flowers and it was an amazing fusion of Catholisim and India. We gathered our thoughts and headed back to a more western shopping district. On our way we found a chinese resturant and had a lovely lovely meal of fresh vegetables. It cost us 900 rupees which is nearly a months wage here but we ate our fill both physically and emotionally. Revived we wandered around for a little while and then another rickshaw home. We had a power blackout for most of the day and fed Daisy in the fading light. Luckily the gas stove still works so as all else seemed to fail we could still make a cup of tea! 

Koramangala Food Markets

These are the fresh vegetable markets in a very nice suburb just north of us. I haven't ventured into these yet as I am buying my vegetables from a little supermarket. One day I will venture into them. I think I will ask my driver to walk with Daisy and i jsut to be on the safer side. I didn't see many white women with babies in the area. The photo is a little blurred as it is taken from the car as we were speeding past. Daisy has her car seat we we feel much better with her travelling in it than on our laps. It is a little upright and if she is very tired then sheis back on my lap and has a sleep. Most of the time she is happy to sit up and point things out to me. There are some interesting vegetables that I have no idea what to do with them so we are mainly sticking to sweet potatoes, ordinary potatoes, tomatos, zucchini (courgettes) cauliflower and spinach. The fruit looks lovely and has the most amazing colours. There are little carts of pomergranites, mangoes and stinky fruit everywhere on the side of the road and in little side streets. I haven't bought anything of these either yet. Our cleaning lady was veyr generous and bought some sweet potatoes from her garden for Daisy. We buy most of our herbs fresh like curry leaves, coriander, mint. A bunch costs 2 rupees. There are 87 rupees to the pound and 34 to the Australian dollar. A bunch of spinach is about 8 rupees. A bag of dal is 46 rupees and rice is about 30. A bag of flour is 28 rupees. A jar of English jam is 280 rupees and a can of baked beans, heinz of course, is 300 rupees. A copy of the Sunday Times from England is 680 rupees. We are still reliant on imported food but we are gradually eating more spinach and dal and curries so hopefully our cost of living will be quite managable. We did eat out at a chinese resturant today and it cost 900 rupees as we had quite the meal. Daisy loved her steamed vegetable dumpings! 

My Cot!!

Our things have arrived and all is well. It was fairly straight forward getting through customs and import duty. A man came to our other apartment and filled out the forms. Then the next morning we went to the airport where Chris met him and he had to go through every single box. It think there were 24 in total. We were charged for bringing in a desk top computer. It is strange as we bought in two laptops as carry on and this doesn't seem to incur import duties. The company was happy to store our things until we had a home which was about four days. Then they delievered it very promptly and I have nearly unpacked it all. Of course there are some things that we have thought, goodness why on earth did we bring this but it is lovley to be surrounded by familiar things. Daisy of course is over the moon in having her cot again. We all slept so much better having our own beds again. Now she can lie in any direction to her hearts content! She is in bed at 7.30pm most nights and sleeps through surrounded by super ted and her old sleeping bag. It is lovely to take a moment out of the chaotic day to have a cup of tea in one of our old starbucks mugs and have a little space that is calm and familiar!