Quality Inn Southern Star Mysore

... at a statue of the bull Nandi. While we were there, my mom and I tried some delicious fresh sugar cane juice. I had been wanting to try this since I first saw it in Delhi, but it was out of season in the North before I had the chance to get any.

During Dasara, many homes in Mysore make these big elaborate doll displays that people come and see. There are awards for the best ones, and it is apparently a pretty big deal so our guide ...

... course, but then, it became quite common. So we wanted to see some historical place this time. Hassan was close to Manipal (~ 6 hrs drive), and was unanimously decided by all. A few hours before we were leaving, i told the folks of my real plan, which i had nurtured for so long --- the Trek (or sheer madness?!). This is supposed to be one of the famous treks in South India, and people have been doing it since early nineties.

In a nutshell, this 'trek' is supposed to be a ...

... mix, bananas, chocolate and biscuits. I tasted some of the tea leaves, they tasted like tea and I wished for boiling water and cups. We walked down into the valley and the up the other side towards a small village where we knew buses would pass back towards Ooty. The walk took about 3 hours. Progress was slow because we had to pick our way between the tea plants. We also stopped and drank regularly to survive the heat. At the bottom of the valley we had ...

... A very small minority of some 6 million Indians are Jainists. What distinguishes Sravanabelagola are the 2 hills of granite rock between which the town sits. A total of 614 rock-cut steps lead to the top of Vindhyagiri Hill where a 17.5 meter high statue of a naked Bahubali is erected (Bahubali renounced the material world you see, entered the forest and meditated in complete stillness until he ...

... successfully completing the task.

The venturers returned to Field base on Saturday and had a barbecue that night, swapping stories over sausages before being given their new allocations for Phase 2 on Sunday.

The venturer group also brought back some creative genius, painting up two murals for the bare Field base walls and uploading some "frame" photographs.

The "Frame" task is a challenge for venturers to find a creative way to make a ...

... for Nadia to return from Thailand and try to find some theyyam. Theyyam is a kind of trance dance ritual performed for harvest celebrations. The performer fasts and meditates then puts on make up and costume and dances in a frenzy to wild drumming, loses his identity and speaks, moves and blesses people as if he were a deity. It was chilly in Mysore City early morning and people were lighting fires to keep themeselves warm. I couldn't work out which bus was mine ...

... the art was quite good but as cameras were not allowed inside I can not offer any evidence, but I did pick up a rosewood timber picture with elephants in the markets outside. We visited yet more shines including Sri Chamundeswari. (How many shrines does do need?) There were masses of school kids and the queue to get in would have wrapped around the building a couple of times, but they had an express lane fore those willing to pay. I have seen so many ...

... out on visiting a Jog Falls while coming within 2km and basically lost his cool. Eventually a compromise was reached and we visited the falls for a max of 10 mins before heading on our way. The falls were actually quite good despite there not being heaps of water. We stopped at a small restaurant recommended by the bus driver. The restaurant had no menu and offered basically curry vegetable or curry vegetable with mutton. It tasted nice and spicy.

... It enshrines Hoysaleswara and Shantaleswara, named after the temple builder Vishnuvardhana Hoysala and his wife, Queen Shantala. Then it was sacked by the armies of Malik Kafur in the early 14th century, after which it fell into a state of disrepair and neglect. Currently Halebidu is facing serious problems in decaying infrastructure, including a lack of basic amenities like toilets and drinking water. The ...

... In the Hoysala idiom, madanika figures are decorative objects put at an angle on the outer walls of the temple near the roof so that worshipers circumambulating the temple can view them.[31] They served the function of bracket figures to pillars inside the mantapa ...