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.

Food & The Spice of Life

I am happy to finally sit down and pen this blog post; it has been on my mind for quite a while. Shortly after I arrived, while chatting with a friend on facebook about how much I love the food here, she said "take pictures of everything you eat!" I'm not quite able to carry my large DSLR camera with me everywhere I go, but I have tried to take a few shots of some of the food I tend to eat. Also, the food in South India (and in India as a whole) is so incredibly delicious that it simply deserves a blog post of its own!

Adrak, Dhania, Jeera, Tej Patta, Badi Elaichi, Imli, Haldi, Hari Mirch, Anardana, Garam Masala... the list of popular Indian spices could fill several pages. And that is truly the secret behind Indian Cuisine, be it Kannada, Rajasthani or Punjabi food, or perhaps a hot dish from Andhra Pradesh. The immense variety of spices used in virtually every single dish is what makes even the simplest meal in India an intense pleasure. People warned me of finding fairly spicy food in the South - but by that they I think meant the large spectrum of flavours used in all dishes, not burning chili heat. And of course, most people do not know that I tend to enjoy searing hot food. Dishes are usually flavorful but rarely burning hot, so I often ask for spicy items on the menu or get extra chili on the side.

Sagar Fast Food is right outside the office building where the Dream Connect Centre is housed, and I eat lunch there every day. SFF has delicious food at low prices, and they have a more variety and better-tasting items than the other local fast food chains, like Shanty Sagar. "Sagar" means ocean, which is used as an analogy for variety. Some of their most popular meals are South Indian Mix and North Indian Mix, where you get a large plate full of several small servings of different dishes to sample.

Food is quite cheap at SFF, just like other small local joints. The two mixes mentioned above are only Rs. 36 and Rs. 45 respectively ($1 = Rs. 56). One day I bought roti curry (2 chapati's with gravy), a samosa and a glass of freshly-blended mango juice, all for just 77 Rupees. My favorite dish at local fast food joints is probably masala dosa. Dosa is kind of like a chapati made from rice-flour batter, freshly fried on one side on a grill plate. That type has masala (spice mix) added to the bare side, and it is served wrapped around a large spoonful of mashed potatoes and veggies.
Another kind of dosa I tried from a roadside seller had omelette fried onto each side of it, which provides a really tasty protein-rich dish (SFF and most local restaurants are vegetarian and do not serve eggs). Oh, and it all comes with two different dipping sauces of course.

Food at my PG (Paying Guest) room in Koramangala is decent but quite repetitive. I pay Rs. 500 a month for breakfast and dinner every day, plus lunch on weekends (although I'm never there at that time). Dinner is always rice, thin dal (lentils) and some saucy vegetable dish, often served with small rotis. The quality is good although I sometimes add variety by eating egg dosa/omelette or chicken momo's (dumplings) beforehand. A little over a week ago I went up to Empire about a kilometer from my place to get some of their famous grilled chicken to eat with my dinner:

Rice, dal, okra, chicken for Rs. 125 and a glass of pulpy grape juice for Rs. 20.

Eating chicken biryani at a local restaurant ("Biryani Center") in Koramangala with two guys from the office, Mahesh and Nagu.

Another awesome food thing about India is of course the abundance of fresh fruit. You are never far from a juice shop where they blend fresh fruit juice, milkshakes or cold coffees for you. There are also plenty of fruit sellers on the streets: coconut sellers, guys with carts full of mangoes or guavas, box carts with things like watermelon and papaya and everything in between for fruit salads, and stalls that sell most other kinds of fruits. I actually arrived at the height of the mango season, which is probably my favorite fruit, so I decided to buy myself a glass of mango juice every day lest I regret it when I'm gone. Not to mention that it's super healthy.

Salman, my local fruit guy operating outside the corner of Sagar Fast Food. He helps his dad with the fruit stall & selling coconuts during his school holidays.

A bowl of fruit salad for Rs. 20.







I have for many years maintained that my favorite food in the whole world is the Indian cuisine. I think I can safely say that that is now a firm and proven belief. I'm gonna hate leaving Karnataka and India behind for many reasons, but the awesome food is a huge one of them.

P.S.: My laptop has pretty much been handed a death sentence - it needs both a new hard drive and a new screen, which would cost around $200. I have decided to look for a cheap netbook instead. This would really help me keep up with my written tasks, plus I'd be able to blog more often.