Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Mysore Revisited

After spending quite a lot of indistinguishably boring days at GE, Mummy and Papa visited me on 26th May (Friday) and they stayed for a weekend. They reached on Friday morning via a Jet Airways flight, but took more than an hour to reach Whitefield from Airport owing to a particularly rush traffic and a poor Taxi-driver. The journey to Whitefield cost them Rs. 200/-. After keeping their belongings in my room, they left for the market (M.G. Road) while I left for my office. But they were very much disappointed as well as frustrated by Bangalore weather as that day saw one of the most torrential rains of the seasons and that too during day time. And with the Traffic Jams accompanying this, it took them the whole day to get back home. I got them a room in Kothari Complex itself for Rs. 200/- per day, as they were very tired to go and search for another.

The next day we visited GE in the morning. I had a lot of problem getting them in as the security men wanted a confirmation from the reporting manager, who wasn't there. Later, we went to Mysore, with the bus leaving at 4pm. The journey cost us Rs. 103 per head. The journey was peaceful but took more than 4 hours. We were late for almost everything and had to call it a day. We took a hotel room in a hotel called "Rajdhani Group Of Hotels", which had very poor furnishing but insanely high prices as compared to the room's worth. But my parents thought it worth as they told it was better than the others visited.

The next morning we hired an Auto-rickshaw for Rs. 170 that was supposed to make a trip up to Chamundeshwari Hills and back, and drop us on the Palace. The hill was very steep up. The hill is considered one of the 8 holiest peaks in South India. On top is a temple of Chamundeshwari Devi. There were two ways of visiting the temple; one was free entry, and the other was a Rs. 10/- "Special Darshan Ticket". We took the special ticket to avoid wastage of time, but were disappointed to find equally long line there. The line didn't move for the first 20 minutes as the gates were closed. Then it opened for 10 minutes when a lot of people ahead of us were admitted but our turn didn't come. For another 30 minutes, we were waiting in vain. Then we became frustrated and decided to leave. But as soon as the decision was taken, the gates opened and we went ahead. After returning from the temple after yet another 20 minutes, we had an argument with the Driver as he expected us to be back in 30 minutes and we took one and half hour. We argued back telling him the ordeal. Then we briefly visited the Nandi temple and then went for the palace. It was a magnificent architecture and viewing it all took almost one and half hour more. After taking lunch, we went back to the hotel room to pack for our travel back.

We took a bus similar to the one already traveled in during the first journey and the bus left at approximately at 2:20pm. We reached Majestic Bus Stop by 6:30pm and fortunately got a bus for Whitefield within 10 minutes.

When we reached near HAL, it started raining heavily. The rains continued till we reached Satya Sai General Hospital and then miraculously, it stopped. We went to Chetan Lodge where we rented a Triple Room for Rs. 450/-. While we came back to eat at Mayuri Sagar, I took my official stuffs to Chetan Lodge so I can go directly to GE the next day.

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