Mysore - city of palaces

New trainees (Maryna from Ukraine and Kim from Canada) came to Chennai three weeks ago and since they're here just for 2 months and want to see as much as possible, they joined me, Angela and Lamy for our trip to Mysore - second largest city of Karnataka state famous for its palaces. So, we were a nice group of 5 girls from 4 continents catching a night train from Chennai. I was the only one who had travelled by night train before so it was kind of adventure for girls. Lamy and Angela were not very lucky though because our berths were just next to the toilet and the smell wasn't lavender like ;-) We reached Mysore in the morning, got a taxi (it was really easy because taxi drivers were almost fighting each other to win 5 foreign customers), found a budget hotel, bargained a bit about the price and check-out time, got shower, made a plan for the day and finally set out for Mysore sightseeing.

We wanted to get some city plan and information about buses going to hills and gardens outside the city, so we first went to a tourist information office. Yeah, even after 5 months in India I'm still very naive and I really believed that we could get some tourist information in tourist information office. Isn't it the purpose of this office? Obviously not because there was nobody inside (it was open though) , just few leaflets about Chennai, Kerala and even some about Mysore (but completely useless) on the table. "Never mind, we will improvize and we can always ask people about buses and so." We started with a huge Indian breakfast and wanted to catch a bus for Chamundi hill. When searching for the bus station, we met a guy who told us that the temple on the hill would be closed till 3 pm and that we should better go to the market first.
When discussing with the guy, a transvestite approached us. I've already heard a lot about these people but so far I've met just one in Chennai. Girls were really surprised and they were all taking pictures with "her". These "ladies" are not working because nobody wants to employ them. Se they are just walking around city and collecting money from people. People willingly pay them since these "ladies" can touch them (everywehre!!!), yell at them and ths embarrass them or they can even curse them! Later, we found out that Mysore was full of these "ladies" and we were the only ones staring at them.

So, we went to the market and to an aromatic oils factory. We saw how joss-sticks are made, smelt different types of oils and even got a quick massage. These guys were trying to convince us not to waste money on Mysore palace and better take an aroma therapy and massage. They were quite disappointed by our decision not to miss the palace but they were quite nice and were not hassling us too much. We were determinedly heading for the biggest tourist attraction: Palace of Mysore (Maharaja's Palace) to waste our money a little bit ;-) It was quite a long walk during which we were offered marihuana few times (this had never happened to me before!) and then bothered by vendors and rickshaw drivers. These guys were really annoying and it was damn hard to stay polite and not to send them somewhere very far. On the way to the palace, Mysore proved to be a real cily of palaces. Palaces were all around: hospitals, museums, libraries...almost every governmental institution has its own palace.

One of many palaces in Mysore. This one is Mysore City Corporation.

We finally got to the palace gate, fought off all tiresome vendors, paid entrance fee (as usually many times higher for foreigners and this time our student cards didn't help at all) and WHOW, it was just amazing!!! Palace of Mysore, official residence of the former royal family, is a huge magnificent building surrounded by gardens. From outside it looks rather big than luxurious but the interior is really breathtaking. Obviously, maharajas in poor, developing India were quite well off ;-) We spent two hours wandering around and inside the palace and left with a very heavy hard.

Our ladies group in fron of the Palace of Mysore

One of palace's gates.

First time sitting on elephant! This experience was far too exciting
for my pants - big hole on a back part ;-)

It was 4 p.m. when we left the palace. Next plan was "lunch" and then famous Brindavan Gardens. There were no restaurants around the palace so again we walked a lot to find one. But it was worth it because the food was really nice, though a bit spicy. The guy in restaurant told us that the gardens were 9km from the city and directed us to the bus stop. However, we didn't find it and had to ask people for help. And we were damn lucky because we met this guy who took us to the bus stop and finally decided to accompany us to the Brindavan Gardens as well. The gardens were like a paradise: fresh air (rather cool and without humidity!!!), neet lawn, nice fountains all around. These are the moments when we really hate Chennai and don't want to get back ;-)

Paradise on Earth!

We were just wandering around, relaxing and waiting for sunset because the fountains were supposed to be illuminated and "singing and dancing". It looked really cool when it got dark and all fountains were shinging in different colours. However, there was no show with music going on! We didn't know that the show took place at another place over the lake, fortunately, our new friend did and he directed us there. We had to struggle a bit in huge crowd of people desiring to see the show as well but as usually: it was worth it! Compared to all other fountains around, this one was very small and not that interesting at the first sight. But when the music started and the fountain was dancing and shining in different colours, I was just amazed. With all Indian people around yelling, whisteling and clasping, the atmosphere was wonderful and I caught myself yelling and clasping as well ;-)

Illumitated fountains. Too many colours (as usually ;-)) but still impressive.

It was a lovely but very tiring day. When we finally got back to Mysore and said goodbye to our new friend, we just wanted to go to bed and sleeeeep!!! But SURPRISE!!! Angela's friend (cricketer) was in Mysore with his friends and they were staying in the same hostel, moreover just next to our room...such a coincidence ;-))) So we had few drinks with them, were playing these funny IQ games with matches and listening to music. It was quite a nice ending of the day.

It was quite hard to get up in the morning but since we had to check out by 9 a.m. and the guys from reception didn't forget to remind us first by phone and then by knocking on our door, we made it. After a breakfast which was this time really disappointing (small and expensive) we set out for Chamundi Hill - a hill next to the Mysore city with a temple and famous statues. Well, from outside, the temple was pretty much the same as most of temples in southern India. Finally we didn't get inside because the entrance fee for foreigners was quite unreasonable and there was a long queue of people waiting to get in. So we just wandered around, took some pictures and took 1000 steps down the hill.

Chamundeshwari templeStatue of the demon Mahishasura who was killed by the Goddess
Chamundeswari after a fierce battle.

1000 steps going to the temple on the hill. Religious hindu climb these steps and worship on every single step putting colourful powder on it by touching it with their fingers.Huge statu of Nandi Bull - means of transport of God Shiva.

Our next stop was Art Gallery in Jaganmohana Palace - a huge gallery with a lovely collection of paintings, statues and musical instruments.

Then we continued to Karanji Lake park - a huge park with a big lake in the middle. We were just taking some pictures when it started to rain. And since it's a monsoon season in Karnataka at the moment, it was not just a summer shower but a heavy rain lasting for more than 30 minutes. We got pretty wet before we were able to get into a small shelter already full of other visitors, but it was so refreshing that we even didn't mind that much ;-) When it stopped raining we walked around the park, visited the India's BIGGEST walk-through aviary (basically a small pond with ducks and peacocks that you can find in any ZOO in Czech Republic ;-)) and a butterfly park.

It was already high time to go to the hostel to pick up our bags, buy some food for our night travel and get back to the Palace of Mysore since it was supposed to be illuminated after 7 p.m. Our train was 8:15 p.m. so we couldn't get inside (and we even didn't want to because they would most probably make us pay the entrance fee again) but what we saw from the gate was already wonderful enough. The palace illuminated by 10 000 bubls was just breathtaking!!! Despite all vendors bothering us again and again trying to sell us "jewellery", flutes and kitsch postcards, we enjoyed the solemn atmosphere and our last moments in Mysore thoroughly.

Completely satisfied with our trip, although it was a bit hurried, we got on train and slept like babies until we reached Chennai. Next trip (this time to Hyderabad) planned for upcoming weekend...yippee!!!

Bangalore Road Trip

After more than 4 months of my stay in India, I was finally able to visit famous Indian Silicon Valley - Bangalore. The distance between this Karnataka capital and Chennai is about 330 km and our group of three girls (French Melanie and English Anna) and 4 guys (all Indians) had decided to overcome it by car and bike, which lately turned out to be not the best idea ;-)

We left Chennai on Friday evening and were supposed to reach Bangalore in 5-6 hours. How naive we were!!! It took us two hours just to get out of Chennai!!! As soon as we got on a highway the ride was quite fast and OK but still we had kind of underestimate the distance and it was raining which was quite uncomfortable for the guys riding a bike so we were ready to spend a night in a small town 90km before Bangalore. We finally reached the town (it was already quite late and whole town was dark and sleeping) and were looking for a place to stay at when a real adventure started. When reversing, Guthi (our driver) didn't see a metal construction behind us, the car hit it and the back glass shattered. We were already tired and kind of mentally down so this really didn't cheer us up. First, Guthi was really upset and I expected him to say "We go back to Chennai!" But he was brave and didn't do that. However, when we were standing in front of a lodge and checking rooms availability, a police officer came. We (European girls ;-)) didn't understand much but guys looked really scared. Then I understood: "No, Sir, please, Sir, don't take us to police station! We can pay a fine." A FINE!!! Bullshit!!! This stupid asshole was just threatening us (although we didn't do anything but had damaged our car) to get his bribe! First he asked for 4000 and I thought I would jump on him and strangle him! Finally guys were able to cut the "price" to 1000 and eventually we were free again. It was already very tard (I think 2 am or so) but we decided to continue to Bangalore. We were damn tired and half sleeping when we finally reached Bangalore and found a hostel with free rooms. Good job given the fact that it was 4 am!!!

After this stressful and tiring journey we slept till noon when we set out for lunch and Bangalore sightseeing! Well, Bangalore is not a tourist place at all. It's a huge modern city well-known for its IT industry. But still we enjoyed it a lot. It's much cleaner, greener and less chaotic than Chennai. Moreover, given its inland location and elevation of 920 m, the climate is much European-friendlier: not humid at all and quite fresh between 4 pm and 10 am. And most of auto-rickshaws use meter so you don't have to argue about the price and be ripped off all the time.
We girls (guys were dealing with the car and doing we-have-no-idea-what) went for a walk to Cubbon park which is a huge park in the middle of Bangalore with flower beds and cultivated lawns (something that you can't see in Chennai that often). We went to a catholic church where we sneaked in to see a mass but ran away as soon as we realized it was a funeral...stupid white gals ;-)

Cubbon Park

Then we went to one of Bangalore's tourist attractions: Bangalore Palace. It's a smaller replica of the Windsdor Castle in England. Since the entrance fee was quite high we decided not to get inside (which later proved to be a good decision - one Indian guy told us there was not much inside and it was definitely not worth the money ;-)) and just wander around. We thought we would just take few pictures and walk in the gardens...how naive!!! Guards armed with a huge gun and a whistle kept whistling at us and making these "Get lost!" gestures whenever we touched our camera or approached the garden gate. They wanted us to pay 500 to get a permission for taking pictures. Now it was our turn for "Get lost!" gesture (at least in our minds ;-)) and we walked off. And then, sitting on a rock in a reasonable distance from the palace I was finally able to take some pictures of this nice building. Guards were vehemently whistling (which made us ask ourselves whether they were going to shoot us or not) and making their favorite gestures but we just ignored them...untill they started to move in our direction. So we finally made them happy and got lost ;-)

Bangalore Palace

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and wandering in Bangalore city center. I felt almost like in Prague with all the modern buildings and fancy shops around (later we found out that just two main roads looked like this). And when it got dark, it was quite a cultural shock to see Indian girls wearing miniskirts, shorts and sexy tops, walking hand-in-hand with guys, smoking and drinking in bars. OH MY GOOD!!! Shame on you! You call yourselves good Indian girls?! Yeah, only now I realized how different and conservative city I had chosen for my internship. It has not much to do with the rest of India anymore. But let's see whether this is really true in the future when I'll be traveling in north and will thus be able to compare Chennai to more places, not just Bangalore.
After a dinner on a rooftop of a posh restaurant we went to a rock club where our guys were already practicing their drinking skills. They were already quite high, we were tired and the place was terribly expensive, so I decided not to drink (in fact none of us girls was drinking) and just have fun watching them becoming more and more drunk and thus more and more crazy ;-)

Next day morning, Anna was sick and guys were sleeping. So we went for another sightseeing just with Melanie. We went to a Botanic garden...another huge park with a lake in the middle. We were just chating, walking and enjoying the climate. Then we went to the last tourist attraction: Tipu Sultan's Palace (a small wooden summer palace) and got back to lodge to pick up sick Anna and meet guys.

Chinese gate in Botanic garden

And that was it. We set out back to Chennai at 1 pm and after a very long and tiring ride we finally reached home at 10 pm. Although the trip was not as nice as we expected, I was really happy to see this famous city and enjoy its wonderful climate. And what is a lesson from this trip? NEVER EVER ROAD TRIP IN INDIA!!! Let's stick to dirty trains and buses ;-)

What's up in Chennai

It's already been some time since I've last let you know about my life in India. Many things happened (although all of them were rather small, no adventurous trips) and I'll try to briefly tell you at least about those most interesting.

Party at Peter's place

Peter (the CTC guy) organized a Dance Party in his house. The house is in the south part of Chennai, it's huge, with several terraces and view on the beach. These conditions combined with a lot of nice people (Indian and foreign) and nice drinks are a guarantee of a great party. And it definitely was a great party!!! We spent many hours chating, drinking, dancing (it was my first real dancing in Chennai!!!) and it wouldn't be Peter if he didn't take us to the beach and made all of us get into the sea in our clothes (I had my office clothes which I was supposed to wear next day as well ;-)) Although we turned Peter's nice house into one big pool (imagine more than 30 soaking people in one house!), he was just an amazing host and we all had great time. The party finished quite late (4 a.m.) so I decided to sleep over and go directly to work in the morning. And I'm sure you can easily imagine how productive I was in the office ;-)

Quite a nice group of people...

...who is definitely not scared of waves ;-)

Art galery & volleyball match

One Saturday, Sasha and Abdul came up with idea of visiting Art Gallery close to our place and hockey match. So five of us (Angelina and Lamy joined as well) set out for a cultural afternoon. We were quite disappointed when we reached the place because tickets for Indians were 15 rupees and for non-Indians 250!!! Although we're already kind of used to these double pricing, this was way too much. But Abdul showed his amazing negotiation and persuasion skills. He was able to convince the cashier that we were foreign students although we didn't have propre student ID's (just Lamy and Angelina did) but just a library card and canteen card without pictures. He explained to the lady that we were from four different countries and that in different countries student ID's looked different, sometimes they even didn't have photo!!! It worked out and we got our ticket for Rs. 75 each!!! The ticke was valid for the whole areal with some more museums so we saw some nice paintings in the gallery; bronze statues of Indian gods, coins and other stuff in a museum and very kitch zombie-dolls wearing traditional costumes of various nations all around the world. There was even Czechoslovakia! It looked really awful (the dolls were quite scary) but I was quite proud and happy to see it there ;-)

building of the gallery

Lovely dinosaurus in front of Art Gallery...we didn't get it ;-)

Then we went to a stadium to see a hockey (not ice-hockey, but hockey on grass) match. Well, finally hockey match turned to be a volleyball match but it was still great. It was really nice to see Indian girls (most of whom are normally just sitting at home and helping their mums to cook and take care of the siblings and house...at least here in conservative Chennai) wearing sport dresses and playing really good volleyball. And you can imagine how happy we girls were when men came to the court...Whow, big Indian guys without paunches and some of them even with some muscles!!! Incredible ;-) And next funny thing was that when the organizers saw us standing by the court and watching the match, first they offered us chairs and then even tea! Sometimes it's really good to be a white foreigner in India ;-)

Salsa classes

Since my weekdays are sometimes quite boring (all other trainees work late and don't want to do much after coming back from office), I've decided to join salsa classes with Sasha. I know, it sounds funny to be learning salsa in India but it's definitely more useful and less humiliating for me (Indian dances are very expressive and I'm a bit worried I'm not gifted enough to learn them ;-)) We're quite a small group and have a very nice teacher Salman who is just too sweet with his belly showing us all the steps and sexy poses (damn it, salsa seems to be pretty expressive as well!!!). Well, so far I've completed only 3 classes out of 8 and while dancing, I'm everything but sexy. But let's see how seductive salsa dances I will be after the last one ;-)

New trainees

A lot of foreign students and trainees have left Chennai (our Turkish flatmate Cagdas included :-() but new people are coming as well. We have a new French guy Guyaume in our flat (he's nice but still a kid ;-)) and two girls in another flat: Kim from Canada and Maryna from Ukraine. Both of them seem to be nice and since they're going to spend here just two months, they're quite active and willing to join me for any of my upcoming trips...whoa, finally somebody who wants to travel!!!

Clubing

Since Chennai is a very conservative city, pub and club culture isn't developed here that much yet. However, you can find some nice pubs and clubs where rich Indians and foreigners go, drink and have fun. I have already visited one bar with rock music and some people dancing before but this weekend I was to real clubs for the first time since I've been here (and it's already almost 5 months!!!). It's especially because these places are usually in posh hotels and are VERY EXPENSIVE and thus quite unaffordable for poor trainees having Indian salaries and trying to save money for future traveling. But this weekend we were lucky and could visit two clubs without paying ;-)
One Friday, we went for a movie showed by Alliance Francaise (something like French cultural centre that organizes a lot of nice stuff) with Angela (Kenyan girl), Abdul and Melanie. Movie was quite nice but it got stuck in the middle and these guys just weren't able to fix it so we left and went for a dinner. Then Angela told me that her friend (a cricket player!!!) invited her to a club and she asked me whether I wanted to join them. OF COURSE I WANTED!!! Professional cricket player and club in one evening! Whow! He picked us up by car with his friend. Both of them seemed to be OK but soon I realized that they didn't want to go to club that much. They just wanted to drive the car around Chennai, listen to music (which was, I admit, really great) and drink beer (they had quite a nice stock of Corona and bought some more Indian beer later). They even came up with idea of driving to Pondichery (at least 3h ride) and Angela was like: "Yes, let's go!" I don't know if she was already drunk (it was just after one beer) or just crazy but she really scared me. When I was strictly against this idea, they proposed Mahabalipuram (which is just 1,5h from Chennai) and where quite surprised when I refused this plan as well (oh my god, how can these guys think that we're so stupid and will spend night in another town with them?!?!). I was even able to convince Angela that we should just go to the club and enjoy dancing. So finally, after 2 beers and more than an hour driving around, we came to the club. Unfortunately, they played techno music which I really don't enjoy that much (three tones repeting again and again just make me feel like braking something or killing somebody ;-)) so we didn't dance at all. But it was still nice to drink beer and watch the crowd dancing. Cricket player (I can't remember his name) was all the time touching Angela (well, he was just holding her around her waist but I'm sure next time he will be tougher). Fortunately, his friend understood quite easily from my cold reactions that there would be no "fun" with me and he let me be. But they were good boys, none of them tried anything more and they dropped us home after.
And since one's appetite grows with eating, we went to another club on Saturday. This time my Indian friend Bala (quite a nice guy organizing parties for expats who I met already in the begining of my stay but since then we haven't met) took us (Lamy and new trainees Kim, Maryna and Guyaume) to a luxurious hotel's club called Havana. He had some connections there (and everybody knows how important connections are in India ;-)) so we didn't have to pay any entrance fee and since we were drinking before geting there we even didn't have to spend money on drinks which were really expensive. And we had just wonderful time. The music there was absolutely fantastic. We went directly to the dance floor (which was sadly empty but got full pretty soon after we entered ;-)) and didn't leave it before closing time. It was really nice especially because most of Indian guys were not staring at us but at two Indian girls wearing sexy tops and showing some lesbian dirty dancing ;-) We had a wonderful time and I hope we will repeat it in close future.

Rock concert

There was a music festival organized by Alliance Francaise (I told you, they really organize a lot of stuff). There were Indian bands playing rock music whole day round on Sunday. We arrived quite late (it was right after the dancing night at Havana club ;-)) and were quite stunned. It wasn't rock music at all, it was rather metal or even heavy metal (you know this vomiting into microphone? that was it). Although this is not my blood group at all, it was another cultural shock for me. For five months you keep meeting these boring Tamilien men, most of them wearing dirty shirt, moustache and greasy hair (of course, some of them have clean shirt and nice hair...my Indian male friends, no offence ;-)) and suddenly you see these long-haired bearded guys wearing those scary t-shirts with sceletons and zombies and other disgusting things. And then you see them dancing this hair dance, jumping and pushing...I really felt like back home ;-)

And to make it more varied there was a short performance of Don Bosco boys. Don Bosco is an NGO taking care of kids (mainly boys) who are either orphans or have run away from their parents because they beated them. People from Don Bosco accommodate them, feed them, teach them and as we could have seen, they even teach them play music. It was really nice to see how proud these kids were wearing their uniforms and receiving a huge applause after their short march.

Planning my traveling in north

And last piece of news is that I've already booked my return ticket to Delhi and I'm planning to spend 20 days traveling in north (Delhi, Varanasi, Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur and some places in Himalayas that are yet to be decided) with Carol (Colombian girl) and Lamy. None of them is the best travel partner for me (they're more into posh hotels and relaxing with a glass of cold drink than into real backpacking and seeing places) so I'm sure it will be really challenging but it will be a good tolerance training for me ;-) So now I'm a bit freaking out when preparing the plan of our trip (girls don't care much so it's just up to me). Although we're starting on August 15, since our main means of transport will be train and there are milions and milions of other eager travelers, we need to buy train tickets already now or within one two weeks. And once the tickets are bought and trains are booked out, there's no chance to change anything. So the plan needs to be really fixed. Well, at least I can see whether I would be a good or rather lousy manager ;-)


OK, that's enough, isn't it? ;-) I have some trips ahead of me so I'll be back soon with updates.