Looking for the 'festival' in Mysore
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
36
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Mysore,
India
Sunday, February 10, 2008
When our bus arrived at the bus station in Calicut, we were quite surprised at just how modern the bus looked. It was air-conditioned, there was allocated seating, no people standing in the aisle, and there was even a sensible place to put our backpacks (on most of the old buses they have to go on a seat). So far so good. About 20 minutes after leaving the bus station, our bus broke down. So much for a modern bus! The bus conductor made a phone call, and after about an hour of sitting on a stationary bus, getting hotter and hotter (the air-conditioning didn't work without the engine), a replacement bus came along, and we were on our way again.
We had decided to get to Mysore in time for Sunday evening, as we'd been told that the Maharaja's palace is lit up with thousands of lightbulbs for an hour each week. We had to miss out a couple of other places to get there in time - it was either that or kill a week, and we don't have enough time for that
In front of Harrods. We mean Mysore Palace.
.We found a hotel with the help of an auto driver. It was a really good price, but considering the window had no glass it should have been!! It wasn't so bad actually - it was set back in a little courtyard so it wasn't even too noisy. The staff were a little wierd - they appeared to be having an ongoing domestic dispute.
So, it was Sunday night and we walked down Ashok Road towards the palace. There were loads of people out and about, tourists and locals, all wandering towards the palace. As we approached and saw all the lights, we were rather impressed and glad that we'd missed out a couple of other places to get here in time, even if it did look like a larger version of Harrods at Christmas! There was a military band playing on the parade ground in front of the palace, there were people sitting on the grass, lots of people taking pictures, and some tourists were even waltzing to the music! (Much to the confusion of the locals). After an hour the lights were switched out and people started to drift away into the night.
The next day we decided to look inside the palace. Having walked to the entrance we used the previous night, we discovered that during the day you have to enter via the East gate, which of course is the opposite side to where we were
Mysore Palace, all lit up.
. So we got on a little pony and trap to the other side. The palace was only about a hundred years old - it was built by the British after the original wooden palace burnt down. Inside there were lots of paintings hanging on the walls, plus some frescoes, but the best bit was what appeared to be a ballroom with a ceiling of stained glass windows. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take our camera in for some reason, so we don't have any pictures. The doorways were also pretty impressive. All intricately carved wood, with inlaid patterns of mother-of-pearl that had been painstakingly cut and stuck in by hand. We could only imagine how long it must have taken to create each doorway.The highlight of our visit of Mysore was in the evening. We had stuffed our faces so much with a lunchtime thali (they keep coming to re-fill your plate!) that we decided to just have some tea and sweets for dinner. As we wandered along the main road near the market towards the sweetshop, a young Indian man stopped to talk to us, and told us there was a festival on that night. We don't normally pay too much attention to someone random in the street telling us things like this, but the pony-and-trap guy and an auto driver had also mentioned a festival. So we headed in the direction that he pointed us in, towards the festival. As we got closer to where the festival should be, a small boy of about 10 (Knee-high to a grasshopper, walking infront of Indian traffic like Moses parting the red sea, chattering all the way and saying hello to various local people
Hugh and our Thalis, RRR restaurant, Mysore.
. That sort of a small boy. - Ros) started talking to us about the festival, and said he would show us. This is normally a bit of a pain because you end up having to pay people for this kind of service, but he was very talkative and keen and we couldn't really refuse. He said the festival hadn't started yet so he took us the the British market first (which wasn't very British!). Then he said we could go to see how cigarettes and incense are made. He also told us that he didn't want us to pay him anything, at which point we knew exactly what was happening - we would go and watch the incense being made and he'd get paid by them for taking us there. It actually turned out OK - there was no hard sell for the incense, and it had been quite a fun excursion being lead round by this boy. He was quite a little character and we're sure he'll be a successful businessman one day!! Although rather oddly, no festival materialised and we can only think that it is a scam the entire town is in on! 
