Mysore

Exploring the ruins in Hampi wasn't an easy task, because of the huge area and the heat. In the 4 days I spent there, climbing the boulders' hills and discovering new temples and buildings of the ancient city, I never got bored. On the second day, I crossed the river, walked through rice and banana fields and climbed 500 stairs up to Hanuman (monkey god) temple. There were lots of monkeys on the way, I gave some bananas to the small ones, and then the big ones came, they were really rude. In the temple lives a friendly baba, a young guy, he speaks well English and is fun to talk to. The views from up there are great, as far as one can see there are boulders in piles, and the buildings seem really small compared to them.

Hampi has so much energy, just sitting under one of these rocks gave me vibrations. I left yesterday on a night train, the ticket was to Mysore, which involved changing trains in Bangalore, the high-tech city of India. I thought about leaving my bag in the cloak room, explore the city for a while and catch a train to Mysore. The station was going through some renovation works. In India it means people have to walk over the renovation site. Hundreds of people coming out of the train, crowded together on the stairs without banister, trying to get out of the platform. As soon as I got out, I took the train to Mysore which was leaving in a few minutes. So much high tech for me, although the plasma screens in the waiting hall of the station were nice. I got to Mysore around 11. Mysore is known for manufacturing sandal wood oil, the maharaja's palace and the ashtanga yoga centre. Since I have no time to learn yoga now, I went to the other attractions. A friendly rikshaw driver took me to the working people quarter, where I witnessed the process of making beedees, the Indian hand rolled cigarettes. It was cool, the guys work with speed of a machine, making thousands of pieces in a day.

After visiting an oil shop I came out with my sense of smell in a state of shock, the guy poured so much different sorts of oil on me. Then I went to the palace.

The architecture was impressive, vast halls with gold decorations, beatiful wood furniture, paintings and statues. The paintings were made in a Victorian style, the maharaja, maharaja's wife and their children in various combinations, all looking very rich and stiff. I really didn't like the big elephant tusks on the walls. Very bad karma.