Day 3: Mysore Adventures

Day 3 consisted of the following:

• Stay at Hotel
• Visiting the Catholic Cathedral
• Visiting the Palace of Mysore
• Roaming the streets

Wednesday 11th November 2015

Stay at Hotel:

Woke up at about 3am and couldn't really get back to sleep, my body clock is really off.  At 5:15am a loud speaker started up outside, it had a voice chanting something over and over, Keith said it was to let muslims know it was time to pray, but it sure did make a noise.  We had breakfast at the hotel, this time I managed to get an egg omelette and a puffed up rice flour dish called poori, both tasted great and were very filling.  I was still feeling quite sick, sore throat, and headaches so we spent a bit of time in the morning relaxing in the hotel room.

Picture taken inside the restaurant of the hotel where we had breakfast

Tuk-Tuk drive around Mysore

Visiting the Catholic Cathedral:

At about 11am we decided to head out and visit the Catholic Cathedral.  The weather was about 23 degrees with light rain.  We caught a three-wheeled taxi/tuk-tuk there.  I've noticed there are a huge number of these type of taxis literally everywhere, the minimum cost is 30 rupees which is about 70 cents a ride.  The drive to get to the place was crazy, chaos everywhere, and so noisy.  The Cathedral was really outstanding, an amazing structure, it really doesn't seem to fit in with all the other buildings around it.

There were quite a number of people walking in and out of it, some were praying while others were bowing down to statues of different so called saints.  It was incredible to see all the different statues of Jesus, Mary and this lady called Philomena which had a statue inside a coffin laden with all sorts of golden jewels.  India truly is the land of idols.  Keith was saying that virtually everyone here believe in some sort of god.  Coming from a western society I am really amazed, for me it doesn't seem rational for someone to be bowing down to man made statue of a saint or woman with many arms because it doesn't mean anything, as they can't do anything.

Picture of the St. Philomena's Church in Mysore

Built in the 1950s - Gothic style architecture inspired by Germany Cathedrals 

 Visiting the Palace of Mysore:
Later during the day we visited the Palace of Mysore which was really an incredible site.  It was nothing like I've ever seen before, massive structure and maintained very well.  I noticed there were a few European tourists walking around, which made me fit in a bit better.  We walked all through the Palace but weren't allowed to take any pictures inside.  It was really interesting seeing all of these old painting of what it was like back in those days.  Lots of people well dressed, horses, elephants with gold all over them, really amazing.  We saw pictures of the royal family and their golden thrones they sat on.  There was also pictures of king Edward and queen Alexandra which would have visited at some stage.  There was several huge halls with marble and gold everywhere.

Palace of Mysore - Home of the royal family who ruled between 1350 -1950

Picture of the side of the Palace - The grounds were kept very clean

Roaming the Streets:

Later during the day we headed out for some dinner.  We found a nice restaurant and ordered some fried rice with prawns and boiled vegetables.  After eating rice flour for the past two days, vegetables had never tasted so good.  The orange juice I ordered was the best tasting juice I've ever had, it was so fresh and real oranges were used.  We walked back to the hotel which was about 10 minutes away.  Even walking on the side of the road I had to constantly be looking everywhere because motorbikes would drive right next to you and beep their horns.  Keith was use to it and just walked all over the road, whereas I was a lot more hesitant and tried to give way to people.

As I'm writing this the time is about 9pm and there is a festival going on.  Very loud fireworks are going off, with huge bangs everywhere.  Still feeling quite jet lagged and sick.  Tomorrow we are getting picked up by someone from the orphanage at about 10am and we will then head to Hunsur which is about 1 hour drive away.  Looking forward to getting out of the city as it is really loud.