Mysore Musings

CIEE, my abroad program, advertises the fact that they organize weekend excursions to different parts of India for their students. Upon our arrival here we discovered that "excursions" really means one single trip, and "weekend" really means one single night...This is cause for irritation, but our whirlwind trip to Mysore this past weekend was nonetheless fun.

There are roughly 30 of us in the program, so we filled up nearly a whole train car on Friday afternoon when we arrived at the train station. The train was no less than five hours behind schedule, so what was meant to be an overnight jaunt to Bangalore turned into an all night and half a day nightmare.

I blinked and completely missed the city of Bangalore. Since we were now several hours behind schedule we rolled off the train and immediately onto a bus straight to lunch. If there is one thing that CIEE does do well, it is meals. Every event that the program organizes seems to end with me overeating. So I overate then we got back on the bus and found ourselves arriving in the city of Mysore. (The fact that Mysore rhymes with "eyesore" concerned me at first, but it is purely ironic, don't worry, lovely place.) It was early evening at this point so we sped through Mysore's lovely palace. The inside of the palace is really beautiful, but you'll have to take my word for it because, alas, no cameras allowed.

Following the palace we had exactly one hour to explore Mysore's busy market which sells bananas, bananas, bananas, perfume, jewelry, flowers, spices, and anything else you might want. All of this, of course, comes at a "special price just for you madam!!"



We then arrived, famished, at the hotel for dinner and much needed showers. Here, we discovered where all of our money had been spent. The hotel was pretty fabulous. I mean...soft beds, toilet paper, shower curtains, and to everyone's delight, a trendy discotheque attached. Sweaty, exhausted, and dressed less-than-stylishly, we paraded into the club. The decor was a confusing mixture of Americana with a barrel (yes, barrel) shaped door, and booths shaped like vintage cars. We then proceeded to get our respective grooves on and dance until we really really had to collapse in our expensive, cushy hotel rooms.

The next morning we woke up early with the aid of a lot of caffeine. We said goodbye to Mysore, and our nice hotel and got back on the bus...hooray! A few hours of driving brought us to Shravanabelagola, a Jain pilgrimage site and temple. To reach the temple, one has to scale the side of a mountain barefoot. This is difficult in the midday sun, but rewarding in the end. At the top, beautiful views of the Karnataka countryside and a giant sculpture awaits you. Lord Garnateshwara, the upstanding gentleman to your right, is an important Jain saint, he is also one of the largest monolithic statutes in the world. Withhold dirty jokes please.



After the temple we got back on the bus and drove to Melkote, a tiny village known for its Vishnu temple. We ate lunch in a Dharmashala, which is like a free hostel for the temple's pilgrims. Once again, I overate. We explored the town quickly, awkwardly paraded past the pilgrims, through the temple paying our dues to Vishnu, then in keeping with the weekend's theme, climbed back onto the bus.

The bus ride back to Bangalore was long, tiring, and punctuated by spontaneous sing-alongs to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." When our vocal chords were worn out and our butts were asleep from sitting, we finally arrived to the Bangalore Airport where our program leaders comically tried to get twenty-six tired American college students through security and onto an airplane. After only a few disasters we made it onto the plane, where, sadly there was no more singing. The plane from Bangalore to Hyderabad is about one hour...about 16 hours less than the train. We landed, then of course, piled onto a bus.

And now you know why I didn't study for my History test this morning.