Mysore Palace

After popping Ibuprofene throughout the day (which my friends can attest to being abnormal - I usually avoid medication like the plague), I felt much better yesterday afternoon and took a bus to downtown Mysore. I really wanted to see the Palace while I had the chance, especially since they only light it up once a week on Sunday nights.

I grabbed a quick Massala Puri on the way

Mysore is an old historic town, with settlements dating back to the 16th century, and was the capital of the Mysore Kingdom until 1947. It's rich culture and history has given rise to very beautiful architecture, which my camera loved to document as I walked around a bit. Sunday evenings at the palace have free entry, with gates opening at 6:30. I walked 2KM from the north to the south (official) entrance, which had a small bazaar outside of it and throngs of buzzing people. Mysore is definitely a big tourist destination - I hadn't been bugged by so many street hawkers since I came to India, and they all wanted to sell more or less the same things (most of it wooden toys, jewellery boxes or hand fans).

 As I walked back to the main gate, people had already started streaming inside the palace grounds. There were massive amounts of people inside! People of all ages, local and foreign tourists, families sitting on the grass and enjoying the beautiful twilight weather... I normally find people an ugly disturbance to scenic places, but the crowds were oddly peaceful to look at.

When they switched on the 9000 tiny lights that line the entire palace grounds, the crowd oooh-ed and applauded. I turned around, and was astounded by the main Palace building - beautiful simply does not describe it! I was so absorbed by the sight, for once I didn't even feel like taking photos of it (but that feeling quickly subsided - admitted, I'm a camera-whore).

As the evening grew darker, I went looking for a bus station to go back to the hostel in Hebbal in time for dinner. Turns out the western gate opens leads right towards the main local bus station, so lucky me. It's a slightly uncommon route, so there was a huge crowd of people that ran for the bus when it arrived with a lot of shoving and elbowing - I had to shout at a guy who got pissed at me because I blocked the way to allow others to exit the bus first. On the bus, my pants had an unfortunate encounter with a seat freshly wet by a baby, and I talked a bit with the guy who sat next to me (a retired army engineer who had just arrived in Mysore to take up a new job). I barely got out at the right stop, thanks to a random passenger who I think had spotted me earlier.

I loved the name of this kiosk so much I just had to photograph it.

Also, they make good mango milkshakes.

Mysore

I almost got hustled today, just as I arrived in Mysore. I got here around 5:20pm, and my fever that had returned at noon hadn't really subsided. The bus driver pointed to some dude and said he'd help me. Uhm, I don't need help with my bag. "nono, not for bag, auto". I figured, what the hell... might save me some time. It got pretty sketchy when he handed me over to some other dude, who first tried to get me to go on a cab and then said he had his own auto. I don't like blowing people off, but I nervously moved a little towards a bunch of other auto-rickshaw's, when the guy came back and called me over. I tested him with the distance, which he answered to honestly. But:

"OK, so you will go by meter charge?"
"No, 200 Rupees"
"Uhm, that's not what your friend said, so nope"

Dabbed my chest with his hand, and mumbled something about me and India as we both turned away from each other...

I guess that serves as a reminder to avoid hustlers at bus stops. First attempt since I got here.

As I was walking down the road, a young girl on the back of a motorbike randomly smiled at me. I think it was the most innocent smile I had ever seen.

The SVYM hostel is 12-13KM outside of downtown Mysore, and it took a while to find. I got put in a double room for two days with a Jamaican guy from the US called Xavier, who is volunteering with their leadership program. I crashed on the bed as soon as I got in, and looked really groggy when he came back to the room (I imagine he must have been like, "what the hell? It's only 6:30!"). He's supposed to show me around a bit tomorrow, if he comes back from work early that is. Let's see how I feel by then, feverish from exhaustion plus a cold ain't fun...

The Football Session

"Uncle, uncle, one picture PLEASE"

I heard that one about a million times on Wednesday, from all of the primary kids in the batch of students that had a football (soccer) session yesterday. The football program is one of Dream A Dream's projects which focuses on team-building exercises, and there are a lot of discussions both before and after the kids play.

Dream A Dream partners with around a dozen schools around the city, and we went to one with a couple of buses to pick up the children and drove them over to a university campus that had a really good grass field. All the kids were excited, and took it as a picnic trip – they were all busy eating and sharing snacks in the bus, happily chatting with each other and trying hard to pronounce my name. These children had all done the program last year, and seemed to be really into it. The session started with warm-ups, check-ins and a talk on team agreement rules that the students had to suggest and vote on. After playing for a little less than half an hour, they had a cool-down and a brief discussion about the day’s events plus some energizers.

It was a fantastic experience to see how these programs actually work in the field. I participated in some of their exercises and interacted a bit with the kids, and just seeing their happy faces as they talk with each other and play football is an amazing thing. I also spent a lot of time talking to Poornima, a new acquaintance from that day, about photography as we both had our DSLR cameras out and documented the session. After they were done the kids all wanted to have their pictures taken; they were constantly calling out to us, posing, pushing around and messing up each others shots. It was crazy but quite funny.

Taking notes. Photo Credit: Poornima Mysore

Bonus question: Can anyone figure out what movie this structure was in?

Kerala Pt. 2 - Alleppey Photos

Pictures from Allepey town and the backwaters. All unedited.