Sunday is my one day to travel in India. I had originally thought I might undertake some epic pilgrimage to some amazing temples and cave complexes about seven hours away by train, but with everyone working on Saturdays, that plan was shot. So I started looking more local, and came up with the plan to go see the Mysore Palace.
Since I've come here, I've realized that India is a wonderland of palaces and temples. It seems that every city has an amazing palace (or two), and there are ancient temples strewn across the country. Mysore Palace is considered one of the better ones in South India, so I decided that would be my destination.
Suresh wasn't satisfied with that, however. He had bigger things on his mind.
What was once supposed to be a guided tour to Mysore Palace on a bus became, in the capable hands of Suresh and (especially) our capable driver, Saif, a rollicking, bumpy, all-wheeling trip through villages, farmlands and back roads to visit two temples, two palaces, one waterfall, one dam and a whole lotta villages in between. (That sentence personifies my trip, actually...non-stop, longer than expected with a lot of bumps along the way. The layers of symbolism in this post astound even me.)
So here's a quick recap of the trip. Hover over the links for some photos, courtesy of Snap.
Shivanasamudra Falls
After the rainy season, the Shivanasamudra Falls are the 16th largest waterfalls in the world. Three rivers converge in this area to create a spectacle to rival most of the great falls in the world. But the rainy season hasn't come yet, so there wasn't much water. But you could tell it would be amazing.
You can see the falls in their full glory here. In the meantime, I'll take this opportunity to show you Suresh and his family with the falls as a backdrop. His wife, Manjula, and daughter, Medha, joined us on the trip. Manjula helped to explain all the Hindu gods and stories as we visited temples, and Medha spent most of the day doing cute things like making sure she wore her Barbie sunglasses when she got out of the car ("You have to wear sunglasses in the sun!") and telling her grandparents about the waterfalls, "We are just waiting for the water."
Tender Coconuts
On our way back from the falls we passed a guy selling tender coconuts. He had about 100 of them on one bicycle. Tender coconuts are still very soft inside and filled with a lot of milk. After they harden, they're not called tender coconuts anymore. They are just called coconuts.
For 10 Rupees each (25 cents) he'll chop off the top for you to drink the milk, then when you're finished with that, he'll give it a few more whacks and create a spoon out of the husk so that you can eat the meat on the inside. Here Suresh is showing all us city-folk how it's done in the villages.
I've never been a fan of coconut, really. I don't eat Almond Joy or Mounds. I don't even like pina coladas. But this was good. The milk (which is really more like flavored water in terms of consistency) was cool and refreshing. The meat didn't taste like coconut. And as a bonus, it totally settled my upset stomach.
Talakadu
Our next stop was Talakadu. This was the site from which the Western Gangas ruled over 1,000 years ago. It is actually an entire complex of over 30 temples that have been completely buried under sand dunes for hundreds of years. The story goes that when an invading army defeated the ruling people, a woman cursed their king. Her curse was threefold: the city would be buried in sand, the kings would bear no sons for seven generations, and her body would never be recovered (she threw herself into a river). In case you're wondering, the descendants of the original accursed king have had no sons for six generations!
The few temples that have been unearthed have interesting carvings along the outside. They aren't particularly amazing, but the fact that so much of the outside was carved into granite is pretty impressive.
More impressive than the temples, however, was my batting in an impromptu cricket match with some local kids. Suresh asked if I could take a few swings and they said yes. I took three pitches and blasted three sixes (home runs). I'm pretty sure they were comparing me to Yuvraj Singh.
Somanathapura
My favorite part of the trip was actually driving through the villages. To get to Talakadu or Somanathapura, you have to drive on local roads through small villages. It takes a long time, as the roads are narrow, there are ridiculously huge potholes, other cars and trucks coming at you, and farmers pulling wagons with oxen.
The people in the villages are often living in absolute poverty, meaning they live off the equivalent of $2/day, the bare minimum to avoid malnourishment. A recent report stated that over 60% of India's rural population still defacate in the open, in fact, because there are simply no facilities. It's a stark contrast to Bangalore, one of the IT capitals of the world. But the people seem resourceful. I found it interesting how villagers would take their grains and lay them out on the road. Passing cars then drive on them and essentially grind the grains for them. They probably liked Saif, who plowed through their grains at reckless speeds whenever he had the chance.
Anyway, driving through rural India probably had the biggest affect on me. As for the places we saw, Somanathapura was my favorite. It is a temple built in 1268 by the Hoysala emperor, and is considered to be one of the best remaining examples of Hoysala architecture.
This temple was made out of soapstone, which is malleable until it has been exposed to the air for an extended period. So rather than carving out of granite, the Hoysala's wussed out. (Yeah, I said it.) The advantage of their wussiness, however, is the intricacy of their carvings. Each and every stone, at each and every layer of the temple, has a statue or scene carved into it. And by building the temple in a star formation, they increase the surface area of the temple and can put that many more carvings on it.
The temple was created to worship Vishnu, one of the three main Hindu gods. Many of the statues on the inside and outside represent him in one of his 10 'incarnations'. That's as theological as I'm going to get about Vishnu, though, because Hinduism is ridiculously complicated. Our guide told us a ton about the carvings, but in the end we had to cut him short because we weren't wearing shoes and the stones were ridiculously hot. I was paying more attention to my impromptu dancing than whatever he was telling us.
I took a few pictures of individual statues and stones. Many are incredibly detailed. One was a statue of Vishnu meditating, one of only two in all of India. Another set of stones depicted scenes from the kama sutra (hubba hubba). And then there was this one, with a mythological creature made up of seven different animals: crocodile mouth, monkey eyes, cow ears, pig body, lion legs, peacock's tail and something else. I think he said it was a manticore, but if so, it's a uniquely Hoysala version of it.
Lalitha Mahal Palace, Mysore Palace, and KRS Dam
We finally made it into Mysore at about 4:30pm. We thought we'd be there by 2pm, so we were all starving. The plan was to eat at the Lalitha Mahal Palace, which is now a hotel. We got there late, however, so lunch was no longer being served. I did see that the elevator had a seat with floral cushions in it, however. I also realized in the course of trying to take a good photo of it that my camera's exposure was off, making all my pictures come out too bright all day. Doh!
We ended up eating at some American diner-ish place associated with a chain called Cafe Coffee Day, a local chain that has quite successfully joined the coffee army in its march to take over the world. I had a chicken burger. Anyway, we didn't get to eat there, but here's the Lalitha Mahal hotel.
We then went to Mysore Palace. Two things blew me away. First was its amazing stain glass, ivory inlaid doors, carved ceilings and ornate durban. The second was that you weren't allowed to take any photos of the palace, even from the outside! The one photo I got is up at the top of the post. I took it just as we were leaving the grounds where the security wouldn't do anything. You can see better photos at the link at the top of the post, especially of the palace lit up at night.
Finally we went to the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) dam. This dam supplies all of the water to Karnataka (where Bangalore is) and Tamil Nadu (the neighboring state to the east). According to Suresh (who is from Tamil Nadu), when the rains don't come, Karnataka turns off the flow of water to Tamil Nadu. When he said this, his wife (also Tamil) said something in her native tongue that, from the tone of it, made me think we were lucky no Karnataka government leaders were in the car.
They've built some ornamental gardens near the dam, turning it into a tourist spot. On the weekends, they turn on vast fountains, colored lights, and even a musical fountain. I don't really know how I felt about it, to tell the truth, given that people in the villages don't even have consistent electricity. It's hard for me to justify a Indi-pop fountain when people are sitting in the dark in their homes. (Since I got no photos, see this one.)
Getting Home
It started raining on the way home, and traffic slowed to a crawl. At one point we stopped at...you guessed it...Cafe Coffee Day and took a break from sitting in the car. Traffic came to a full stop in Bangalore, though. Apparently when it rains heavily, the sewers back up, spilling waste onto the roads. We had to wait while some poor souls stood in the middle of it and directed alternating traffic down one lane.
And that was the main story of the trip, really: India is a land of extremes. For every palace there is a village without electricity. For every Western-style chain restaurant there is a 1,000 year old temple. And for every IT programmer in the city, there is a weathered farmer aged beyond his years living off scraps in the countryside. And it's all in a day's drive.
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Posted by: 3D Animation Movie on Lord Ayyappa | December 10, 2008 at 09:42 PM
Looks like a great place to visit. I would interested in seeing those carvings in the temple.
Posted by: soapstone | December 02, 2009 at 08:56 AM