The Mustache Palace
Trip Start
May 11, 2005
1
221
259
Trip End
Ongoing
Mysore,
Karnataka,
India
Friday, February 6, 2009
Since I didn't have much time I decided to catch an official tour of the city. This turned out to be a bad choice! The tour took me all sorts of places I had no interest in. Live and learn! The first stop was a random museum chock full of all sorts of random historical India artifacts. The paintings of the Maharajah's were kinda interesting.... I learned that to be a Maharajah one must grow a massive handle bar mustache....I think this trend is still alive in India today because most men have small mustaches. I also learned (2 weeks later in Chennai) that Police men in India get a special mustache allowance to maintain their cookie dusters!
After this we headed to a zoo..... A ZOO! I wish I would had read the itinerary... going to a zoo in a poor country is never a pleasant experience but for a 50 cents how could I say no? Well much to my surprise the zoo and animals were actually in really good condition... Taking pictures of caged animals is not that interesting so I decided to take photos of all the signs that warned of the dangers of teasing the animals.
Mysore Palace
Check out the photos and you will see what I mean. From the Zoo we headed up this massive hill/mountain to some super holy Hindu Temple. There were tons of Hindu pilgrims doing all sorts or rituals, spiking coconuts on the ground, lighting random fires by cows, buying flower necklaces for Shiva and bowing down to a rock wall. I didn't really understand what was going on but it was fun to watch. There was even a baby monkey sitting on the temple wall. He had googly eyes and had to hold a hand over his right eye to see properly... I wanted to buy him some glasses.... but I bet the other monkey would steal them...... plus, I don't know if they even make monkey glasses.......how does one get a monkey prescription anyway?
After I left my monkey friend (and he was my friend) we checked out Shivas bull vehicle.(Nandi, 3rd largest in India.....) wahoo... Once the bus made it back into town I decided to jump off the tour (since it was so lame) and check out the Maharajah castle on my own. Upon exploring the grounds and learning all about it (and promptly forgetting all about it) I caught the Bus back to Bangalore for the weekend...
