It was another Sunday departure. If only the streets of Bangalore were as quiet and empty everyday as they are on Sunday morning--what a pleasure that would be. With such light traffic, we could clear the city in 15 minutes and get out on the highway before the horde followed.
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Halfway from Bangalore to Mysore is a favorite tourist stop, Srirangapatnam, on an island in the middle of the Cauvery River. The history of the site revolves around a great Indian general, Tipu Sultan. During the end of the 18th Century, Tipu defeated British troops trying to make incursions into Southern India. Eventually, he fell to the armies of Lord Cornwallis (of Revolutionary War fame). Reading the texts at various places around town, it's clear that Tipu Sultan was an important figure for Indian national pride because of his successful opposition to colonial British rule.
At Srirangapatnam, visitors can see ruins of Tipu's island fort, its dungeon, and the marvellous Sri Ranganatha temple that was enclosed within the walls of the fort. Also on the island is Tipu's summer palace and the burial mausoleum of both he and his father Hyder Ali, another famous sultan and fighter of the British.
The lure of Mysore for many visitors is the Mysore Palace. Built just 100 years ago, it was a spectacular for the local Maharaja. Though pictures weren't allowed inside, the snapshots I was able to take of the outside of the palace and the palace gate give you a hint of the grandeur inside. We also visited the famous Mysore Bull on Chamundi Hill. Though the guidebooks and my friends here told me that it was much bigger at 16 ft. high than the Nandi at Bangalore's Bull Temple, it seemed about the same to me. Maybe its location in the open air made it seem smaller, who knows? Interesting to me was that the statue is not carved from black rock. The black color comes instead from the aged layers of sweet liquid coconut paste and other anointments that are spread over it.
Maybe because the trip to Mysore had been so good, Niranjan persuaded me we should continue south to Bandipur National Park, a total itinerary that normally requires two days. Unfortunately the road narrowed to a single lane, though admittedly the traffic was relatively light. As we came closer to the Western Ghats mountains, light rain started--wonderful rain! It was the only rain I've seen here in two months. Though it only lasted 10 minutes, I loved it.
Two hours on from Mysore, we arrived at the park boundary. Niranjan kept reminding me that the forest is much greener during the monsoon, which is to say it was darn bare and brown now. Nevertheless, I saw my first spotted deer, many peacocks and peahens, black-faced lemurs, rhesus macaque monkeys, and several mongoose (mongeese?)as we drove along the empty park roads. The only disappointment was that the elephants were most likely spending the late afternoon at the watering hole and were totally out of sight.
I'll spare you the blow-by-blow of our 5 hour drive back to Bangalore. The traffic met Indian standards for night driving madness (passing on curves, lights out, caravans of bullock carts appearing out of nowhere) though the front seat refuge of a new Japanese car with seatbelts made it a bit more tolerable than the back seat of a lurching Ambassador taxi. What's more, Niranjan and I had lots to talk about. He and his wife have spent a fair amount of time in the U.S., so he had lots of good questions about life in Minnesota and elsewhere. It turned out we also share a love of aviation history, which gave us an endless supply of topics for conversation. He also loves Bruce Willis action movies--oh well, you can't win 'em all.