Red Mist

Bengaluru to Mysuru

As usual we started our adventure with the long journey. Firstly, an overnight stay in Manchester before an afternoon flight to Dubai and then on to Bengaluru.

After two, thankfully, uneventful overnight flights and 15 hours of travelling we arrived in India at the city of Bengaluru.

Its probably worth saying that most Indian cities have changed their names in recent times. Whilst it’s my intention to predominantly use their current names I will highlight their previous names and use the most recognisable name where it helps the story.

BENGALURU

So, as I said, we have now arrived in Bengaluru (Bangalore). Its early in the morning when we arrive at our hotel but thankfully, they were expecting us and our room was ready. We were acutely aware of the dangers of jet lag if we were to sleep too long at this time of day but were exhausted so set an alarm for two hours ahead and immediately fell asleep…but not before drinking in the first view of India from our hotel window.

There were no activities scheduled for our first day other than a welcome dinner at 7.30pm (we were on a tour with 18 other people). So, after refreshing ourselves we were ready to step out and explore the city.

For anyone who knows us it will come as no surprise that “exploration” meant going in search of beer and as Bengaluru is the brewing capital of India, we anticipated a productive afternoon and weren’t disappointed.

First stop was Bengaluru Hard Rock Café. We are Hard Rock groupies and if there is one in any of the places we ruck up at then a visit is obligatory and purchases of fridge magnets, shot glasses and t-shirts compulsory. We took a cab (Uber/Bolt/Lyft/Grab apps are invaluable on these trips)and were pleasantly surprised to find a couple of local beers on tap. Unfortunately, I had to double up on the first drink as Her Ladyship took one sip of the Summer Ale and decided it wasn’t for her…so much for a steady start then.

Whilst Hard Rock is compulsory our real passion is great ale particularly if we can drink it in the place where its brewed. With this in mind we set out on the 10 minute walk to Arbor Brewing Company. For anyone who knows anything about India the walk was surprisingly easy with proper pavements and no need to take our lives in our hands by attempting to cross main roads (that cant be said for strolls we took later in the trip).

Its fair to say we were immensely impressed with this brewery tap and embarked on a nine-beer tasting flight before settling for pints of Raging Elephant and Beach Shack.

When we arrived the place was empty but by the time we left it was full and buzzing with the chatter of young Indian twentysomethings. We left full of ale and contentment…little did we know it would be a long time in a wilderness of Kingfisher Lager before we would find anywhere else decent to drink.

On returning to the hotel, we joined our fellow travellers for dinner. The first thing we realised (to our delight) is South India is much fonder of the chilli than their northern counterpart and the food, particularly the sambar, packed a punch. We also met for the first time Elaine and Julie who became our best travel buddies and our saviours from the more puritan elements in our group.

We were only in Bengaluru for one night but it had been a good start and retired to bed happy and ready for adventure.

The Journey to Mysore

Our first stop on the way out of Bengaluru was the Vidhana Soudha, a huge white edifice massively impressive and a site to see. This is the the regional parliament building for the state of Karnataka.

Unfortunately, it was only a very brief photo stop as we drove out of the city.

We drove on and soon arrived at the first of many temples.

The Nandi Bull Temple (Doda Basavana Gudi) lies, appropriately, on Bull Road as you drive south out of Bengaluru. Nandi means “joyful” in sanskrit so I guess this is the “Happy Bull” Temple.

The bull has become blackened over the years because it’s constantly rubbed with charcoal and butter as part of religious observances. In Hinduism Nandi is the mount of Shiva.

This temple was apparantely built to appease a bull that was ravaging the local groundnut crops and an annual groundnut festival is still held here every year.

It’s, apparently, quite a small temple in Indian terms but seemed plenty big enough to me…but then I hadn’t yet seen some of the others we were destined to visit!

Next stop on our journey to Mysore was the Summer Palace of Tipu Sultan. Tipu was the moslem ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1751 to 1799. He fought four battles against the British. Won two, drew one and lost the fourth along with his life.

In his battles with the British Tipu pioneered the use of rockets, essentially large fireworks with swords or bayonets tied to them…in the (sort of) immortal words of CPL Jones ‘they didnt like it up em!)…though I suppose it would actually be “down on em”. Either way watching a dirty great sword falling out of the sky aiming for your head can’t have been a pleasant experience.

The Summer palace is constructed entirely of teak wood. A Breathtakingly beautiful piece of architure it brought to mind a passage I’d read in India a History by John keay. He said that partition had in some ways got it the wrong way round because Pakistan inherited the cradle of Indian culture in the Indus Valley(Mohenjadaro) whilst India got all the best Islamic Architecture.

The palace has a replica of Tipu’s Tiger (Tipu was known as the Tiger of Mysore). Its an automaton of a British soldier being mauled by a tiger (also the side of the tiger drops down to reveal a pipe organ…presumably so you can play happy music whilst watching the mauling). The original is, surprise surprise in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

As we drove further on we passed the memorial on the site of Tipu’s death but disappointingly we didnt stop so sadly no photos.

There would be a running theme on this trip of driving past places of interest to get to less interesting sites stipulated on our guides itinerary. Newmarket would do well to rethink some of this in my view.

Next stop was Mysore Railway Museum. We arrived on a public holiday so it was busy, and is a quite small but interesting attraction (if you’re into trains).

The highlight of the visit was a free ride on the toy train and joining the children in whooping everytime the driver sounded the whistle. We’re never averse to a bit of silliness alongside the culture)

As we completed the last leg of our journey the guide explained some of the complexities of South India we would encounter on this trip. The three provinces we would be visiting Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have distinct and separate cultures, heritage and geography. He highlighted this in just one area…language. Karnataka speaks Kannada, Kerala speaks Malayalam and Tamil Nadu speaks Tamil. The language barriers are such that our Malayalam speaking guide converses with his Kannada speaking colleague in English because it is their only shared language. Hindi is not only not widely spoken in the south, although it is the official language for government etc, it is actively avoided by many. We were going to learn that the western view of a unfied India as a Hindu worshipping Hindi speaking country is far from the reality.

We completed our journey and arrived at the hotel in Mysuru (Mysore) tired but excited to explore what more this wonderful part of the world had to offer us.

Time for dinner, drink and bed.