GopalaSwamy betta & Mysore trip

After a busy week in office what else could be better than a getaway with friends on bikes! 6 Friends and 3 bikes. 2 days and lots of time to kill. The beauty about this trip was that nothing was planned until the last moment. Hell a lot of confusions and finally the outcome was great... I'm a happy and relieved man today as i write this post after the road trip... The trip meter reads 522 KM! Woo.. this is something that i wanted to do in a long long time. A 500 KM plus journey on bike. On one occasion me and my roommates from udupi had ventured to do this in one and half days traveling on 3 bikes then to chikkamagalur and it we had screwed up the whole process royally. :) The thing was we forgot to get our bikes checked before we left and one bike after the other gave troubles then and we returned back without seeing a place. A disaster.. :( but this time everything went off well.

BTW, thanks to one of my friend from Mysore who did give me some suggestions on the Friday to help us travel better. And luckily Hotel Mahesh prasad was good enough to have some descent Vegetarian food in Mysore. I'll talk on this later.

Started out bit late on our schedule on saturday morning.. was supposed to be early but then a few guys delayed it.. but since the roads are good towards Mysore we made some quick distance covering on our bikes. We took about 3 hours and a little more to reach Mysore managing a good heary breakfast on our way in Ramnagar. Let me tell you something here. I belong to a place near to Dakshina kannada or Mangalore. It's the place where Tulu language is spoken by and large in common. And you'll find a lot of people working in different parts of the world in hotels or owning one. Every one in India must have heard Udupi hotels (Some of them are fake though and nowadays most of them are!). udupi is also a place adjoining Mangalore. And in this Hotel that we stopped for some breakfast yesterday morning, we friends were chatting loudly in Tulu language and suddenly the waiter stops at us and asks if we were from Kudla(that is what Mangalore is called in Tulu). And hence this became one of our common aspect through out our journey.. every single restaurant that we stopped in this tour had someone or the other belonging to the Hotel speak the langugage! Now i know why the bunts and Udupi guys are known for hotel bussiness! Some people might differ though.. ;)

After reaching Mysore we first headed off to the famous Chamundi hills. Chamundeshwari temple had some crowd. The full view of Mysore if breath taking. The Nandi on top of the hills is carved out of a monolith (not sure though). One thing that i liked about this hill is that the thing is visible from almost all the places in Mysore. Sort of good navigation help through out travel in the city. After the hills, we headed off to the Karanji lake which is just by the foot of the hills. The lake is surrounded by some cool trees and a stroll in the evening would have been better. But then we were there right in the middle of the lake on pedal boats in the hot sun... was fun though chasing each others boat that we had hired. The water seems to be very dirty and the lake looks like hasn't been cleaned in ages! The giant swan that i saw was something that i east expected. The birds that are collected in the park are great. I saw a white peacock for the first time in my life!And some long legged bird which looked like ostrich to me though.. he he he seriously i did not bother to ask any one around. ;) We did walk some distance to see what would be there in butterfly park but we were disappointing to find none. For some consolation did find a couple of them but nothing great.. some black butteries with white dots.. :(
Mysore has wide roads as i could see and city is more or less nicely planned. But then, the roads have lots and lots of potholes. :( The moment you pick some speed, Boom, there your tires fall into one after another pothole. :( Found the hotel for lunch that we were searching for with little search. But then the place was full! A bit of impatient waiting from all of us at 3 in the afternoon was worth it. And we got to have some descent south indian and more of karnataka lunch. :)

Satisfied and full on stomach we set out to search for some place to put up for the night. And as we were searching, someone from our came up with an idea of staying in Youth hostel! He he he... We got hold of the number of the place some how and got to know that we could get accommodation for 6 people for the night. For people who do not know the concept could go through this site here. The government of India does do something good at times you know.. ;) (kidding here) But then the hostel does take time to go to some of the most beautiful treks people can ever think. I had heard earlier but then this is something i got to see up close. The trek to himalayas does seem in interesting enough. BTW, people who want to stay in youth hostel in Mysore can stay there without any trouble. The place is cheap and clean. Believe me, the thing is dirt cheap and people who can are used to Dormitory can find some accommodation here. And when in a big group this is the best. :)

After finding this place we planned to visit the palace. A bigger piece of the Mysore history belonged to Wodeyar dynasty. BTW, i had not been to the place in my earlier trips. But believe me the first thing that i could say when i saw this place was "It's huge". Really, the palace is so majestic and huge structure! I was awed by the structure. The rest of the evening was spent in going around this beautiful structure that i fell in love with. I was traveling back in time when i was doing the rounds. How majestic it would have been this place of power. The life of king and his family would have been so much full of grandeur. Phew! and the place is getting ready for the annual festival of Dussera which is celebrated with such pomp and show here. The best part is that you are not supposed to take the snaps inside this beautiful place. :( BTW, we got caught carrying a camera inside the palace.. though it was in one of my friend's pocket safely switched off the police caught us and started all the drama. All he needed was us to grease his hands. He made 200 bucks from us.. forget the crap the guy had to say to make his way into our purses... Beware guys, please deposit the cameras you have in the camera deposition center outside the palace and escape getting caught. :(

Hotels in Mysore is hard to find. Of all the streets that we biked through hardly we could sight any good restaurant. And even if we managed to find one, they were all taken and full... :( Had to wait a good half an hour for a lunch in Mahesh prasad! It's tough you know at 3PM in the afternoon waiting for lunch that too when you are really hungry and tiered. Huh! Mysore needs some more restaurants. Well, i eat vegetarian so i am speaking of good south Indian veg restaurants. I wonder what would be the situation during the festivities when a lot of travelers crowd the city!! The Dussera preparations were in full swing in the city as it is only a couple of months away. The street are being fixed with lots of lighting arrangements.

Moving on, we missed visiting KRS deliberately because we thought it would be late when we return from there and this would affect our early journey the next day. We had come to Mysore with the objective of traveling down to Gopala Swamy betta which is about 70km from Mysore towards the border of Karnataka, kerala and tamilnadu. A place 4400 odd feet above sea level. So we crashed off in our beds and got up early the next day and left Mysore at 6 in the morning. Rode as quickly as we can to the foot of the hills. The roads from gundlupete(about 45km from mysore) to hills are pretty bad. Motor able but then lots and lots of potholes. Hmm, once on top of the hill, it was bliss. Cool breeze and fresh atmosphere made it a really worthy experience. The greenery and the sight you could see to miles away on a sunny clear day is beyond words. With western ghats running on one side and clouds flying past you it is awesome experience. The place is frequented by many people in the weekends i felt as there were about 100 people by the time we got ready to leave at 10 AM after a small hike on the hills. Good picnic spot all in all.

The foot of the hills you find all villagers with their heard of cows, buffaloes and goats and sheeps passing by on the road. The drive back was monotonous as it was straight roads and we sped past Mysore in an hour and half's time only stopping by before that for a brief visit to Nanjangud temple. The outer ring road seemed too long in Mysore. We reached the Bangalore state highway and made our way back. Stopped at shrirangapattana for a sight of Shri ranga swamy temple. Here the temple deity is in a lying position and it's a pretty old temple. This place used to be a summer palace for Tippu sulthan who died fighting here in this very same town here. His death and his burial took place here. So historically this place has some importance. Grabbed some lunch on the way back in Mandya and headed straight to Bangalore. Made it to my place at 5 in the evening.

I'm all set to explore more towards Mysore area of Karnataka in the near future.... Looks like there are lots of places that i could visit here....

Also in this trip i did a stretch of 100km/hr plus many times... i clocked the highest of 118Km/Hr in one stretch that i got. And i am thrilled at it as i never thought i would travel so much on my bike someday.. :)