Day 26: Mysore

We only had the bus for half a day today because Babu is driving on to Mamallapuram with our luggage while we take the sleeper train tonight.
Morning sightseeing started with a 15 minute drive uphill to Chamundi Hills to see a big goddess temple. It was very popular with the local Indian visitors. The queue into the temple would have taken 1.5 hours so our group decided to skip going into the temple.

Statue on Chamundi Hills

Stall selling offerrings

Large, popular goddess temple on Chamundi Hills

Brahmin priest at Chamundi Hills

We did a pit stop at the post office where the stamps had to be stuck on with glue, unlike the self-adhesive ones in Shimla.

Postbox on Chamundi Hills

We went on to the 2nd largest bull temple in Asia down the road.

Bull statue at 2nd largest bull temple in Asia

Then it was on to Mysore Palace -big, busy, beautiful, interesting, good with the audio guide. I especially liked the upstairs hall with the painted ceilings and columns, appropriately described in the audio guide as being reminiscent of the 1001 Arabian Nights. We couldn't take photos inside the palace, only of the palace grounds.

Mysore Palace

Outside view of the painted ceiling of the '1001 Arabian Nights' hall

The bus had left us by now and we have checked out of the hotel this morning so we were pretty much at a loose end from lunch until the evening. I took the afternoon off sightseeing - the heat and being in a city was getting to me. I sat in the Hotel Viceroy lobby updating the blog and chatting variously to Karen, Christine and people coming back for a pit stop. I do like meeting people who like to travel.Some of our group went to the shops, then followed Ravi to the Devaraja Market - it looked nice from the photos.

Dinner was at the Viceroy and was the first sub-standard meal I've had in India. Many dishes were unavailable and what I ordered tasted like it came out of a packet.

We got auto rickshaws to the train station where we caught the 8.30pm Chennai Express to Chennai. Our train car was 3 AC, which means there were 6 bunks in a section. There were 4 of our group plus 2 Indian ladies in my section. I slept relatively well considering the narrowness of the bunk and people coming onboard middle of the night. Top sleeper train tip: eye mask and ear plugs help.