Our first stop was Srirangapattana, where we visited the summer palace of Tipu Sultan, his place of death battling the British and his tomb. Tipu Sultan, known as the Tiger of Mysore was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in the 18th century and was renown for his bravery in war with the British Empire. Somehow the tomb which looks like a mini Taj Mahal looks grander than his palace.
Right about lunch time we arrived at the highlight of this trip, the Mysore Palace. The palace was built after Tipu Sultan's death in the 19th century. The palace is save to say bigger than the Buckingham palace or our King's palace back home.
It's compound is lush and scenic with 8 temples surrounding the palace perimeters. We hired a guide for RM30 and one of the amazing fact that we would have missed without the guide was the hidden secret of the wall murals that is painted with vegetarian paint which for more than 200 years still looks new but the amazing bit is that these paintings be it a potrait of the maharaja or an army of soldiers is, they all look different if viewed from the left or right of them. Certain items in the paintings like the eyes of the Maharaja, the ring on his fingers, the placement of his feet, all these seems to be facing you whether you are standing on the left or right side of it. It was unbelievable, yes maybe the eyes does follow you wherever you are in the room but the other objects like the direction the army is facing moves as you moved from side to side of the painting quite subtly. None of my collegues who had been here more times they can remember knew about this amazing fact. Only cost me RM30 for a one time visit to pry this ancient secret. They were amazed :p Sorry no cameras allowed in the palace you just have to take my word for it.
We headed to one of the 5 star hotel for lunch and spent them all as a good gesture for accompanying me today. Food was good but again the food portion here for one person is good for 2 person back home. I ordered chinese oyster souse chicken for them to try out and I had for dessert this sweet ball of dough soaked overnite in sugary water. Was bloody good. The diet here is always to end your meal with something sweet, the sweeter the better, wonder what is the diabetes cases here is like :p
We then headed to one the the Kingdom's ancient temple, the temple of the Goddess Chamundeshwari, on top of a hill called Chamundi Hills. The scenery on the top was breathtaking, was able to see the entire city and made out the places visited earlier.
We then headed to the oldest church built about 200 years back during Tipu Sultan's reign known as St. Philomena's Church, looked like something which belongs in Europe rather than here. Beautiful.
Before heading back, we visisted their emporium malls to purchase some sandal wood souvenirs as Mysore is known for their sandalwood, ivory and silk products and craft. Was a little pricey as compared to normal wood products that is because Sandalwood is the fragrant wood of trees and is used as fragrance in perfume, incense and for woodworking. You can tell by sniffing the product to tell it apart from the normal wood products. We headed back home but not too late for another last round of coffee for the day at Coffee Day which we learnt opens 24 hrs. It was a saturday night so was abit jam gotten into town. Got back into the hotel ordered dinner and collapsed on the bed. Good trip it was!! :)
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