Mysore, Karnataka

After escaping with a morning bus from Bangalore to Mysore we arrived to slightly more fresh air in a smaller city. We ended up bargaining with hotel inthrowers about their accomadations and decided to stay in "Chandra Palace". Our room is ok if you do not miss a view - there is a brickwall ½m from our windows blocking everything.

Maharaja's Palace

On the first day we went walking around and checked the famous Maharaja's Palace. It was beautiful, but a bit boring as it was just a palace, reconstructed by british a hundred or some years ago. The stars of the visit were a friendly elephant and two camels on the palace yard.

The second day we took a rickshaw drive to Chamuti Hill with an active pilgrimage temple and Nandi (Shiva's Bull vehicle) monolithic statue. We got a blessing for happy future with a long piece of red yellow cotton wrapped around our wrist with under it the kumkum-(red powder) dot that most hindus wear between their eyes. 

 Chamuti Hill

After that we visited some local workshops to see how incense, silken carpets/sari's/pashminas and sandalwood items are manufactured. Mysore is the only place where sandlewood-trees are growing so lots of woodworks, oils and jewelry are made and sold here. Mariska couldn't leave without buying a little overpriced but cute brown bead necklace made of sandlewood that has a nice woodfragrance when you rub it. Unfortunately all the hindu temples look a lot less majestic after seeing Hampi. 

 

 Hungry cow eating a bike

Bangalore, Karnataka

We got woken up around 5:30 by a nice busboy chanting "BangaloreBangaloreBangalore". So we stepped out still half sleeping and picked up a rickshaw to our hotel. After this things started happening, the driver tried to bargain us to drive to "his" hotels, he did not know where our hotel was etc.

After a littlebit of driving around we found our accomodation in Chickpet's market district. But when we got to the door of the hotel it was still dark and locked, no problem, a night janitor came to open the door and said they have no vacancy. This was awesome news for the rickshaw man that told us to go to his place for only 700 inr/night. Luckily I had beforehand written down  some addresses & phonenumbers from nearby and we got a spacious luxury room from Chandra Vihar Hotel only a few hundred meters away for under 500 inr. The Rickshaw driver took us there but then started to demand double payment for his original doubleprice. (Rickshaw drivers are refusing to use mandatory faremeters). Luckily we were in front of our future hotel and not in some dark alley, so he anyway slightly becomming aggressive decided to rather leave then kill us ;)

After a nice morning sleep we walked down to Lalbagh Botanical gardens. This Vondelpark away from home has some nice friendly monkeys, giant silk trees, a lake and lots of young lovers.

 Monkeys in Lalbagh garden

Otherwise Bangalore looked ugly, crowded and is just a busy city. It was also the place where we have seen most smog this far.

 View from our balcony (a quiet moment on market street)

Our Hotel was in middle of a loud neighbourhood, the City market area. We ended up experiencing with local bakeryitems filled with mysterious fruits/vegetables and abusing room service. Also the urban Indian streetfood - curries/dals served in bananaleaves, juicebars etc were present.

Silkworm tree, spot Mariska

 We also visited the Karnataka State Science Museum and spent hours walking searching for lakes/parks.

Hampi, Karnataka

On the bustrip from Gokarna via Ankola to Hampi we met a friendly Indian man called Mani. He talked out loud about his work as a cook in two restaurants, one in Kudlee Beach and one in Hampi where his family lives. He invited us to come to his Dhanlaxmi Restaurant so he could cook for us and show his family. After 5 hours waiting for the bus in a chabby roadhotel in Ankola we finally could get in the already full (with tourists and luggage in the walkingpath) loaded bus. We had some trouble finding an empty bed, which just seemed to not be there anymore. So the chaotic busdriver send a single man to sleep together on a bunk with another man so that we at least got what we payed for. The ride was cold as the window didn't close completely and the whole  road was shakey so we both felt sick afterwards. 

 Virupaksha temple

Main Bazaar road

We stayed the fist nights at the Hampi Bazaar in Vicky's Guesthouse. It had a nice view on the beautiful Virupaksha Temple from their rooftop restaurant. Despite the magnificent surroundings I felt more and more sick for a few days and nights so we couldn't do much more then short walks and then fastly, feeling suddenly very dizzy or sick, back to the guesthouse for bed or toilet. Luckily we could find enough western food in Hampi so the few toasts and mint-teas I could keep inside made me slowly get better. 

  

 Gate to Vittala temple, once covered with marble statues

We took a longer walk through ruins to the Vittala Temple where on the way we got blessed by a local baba giving us the red bindi-dot between the eyes. Many Indian people there asked us to make pictures of them or us with their children, which I found very nice moments of happy smiles. 

This place is really the most beautiful place and has a very relaxed atmosphere. We have been climbing over rocks and ruins with monkeys at Hemakuta Hill, feeding bananas to Lakshmi the holy elephant, and chilling in the many rooftop loungy cafes and restaurants full of matresses and pillows on the floor. So take off your shoes at the door, lay down, order herbal tea (alcohol is prohibited and not easily available in Hampi), eat a veggieburger, smell the insence and stare at the glow-in-the-dark artworks and other spiritual images of gods and godesses being put everywhere where they possibly can be.

 Hemakuta Hill

After looking around through the cosy small streets of the bazaar we found at the deadend of a street a little cheaper and nicer place to stay; Kiran Guesthouse, a familyrun place with a colorfull comfortable room. The next days we visited some more temples (Krishna, Jain and more) and monolitic sculptures (Ganesh and Nandi), we sat down at the Ghats and watched women manually do laundry at the river that runs around the bazaar, we walked through the banana plantage and we enjoyed spotting or being walked over by more monkeys/goats/dogs/cows/sheep/cats/cockroaches. 

Bananas

 The last days in this almost surreal beautiful town surrounded by rocks we ordered bustickets for Bangalore, traintickets for Mysore-Chennai and flighttickets from Chennai to Colombo - Sri Lanka. On the 11th of  december we went to Hospet and waited there for the nightbus to Bangalore.

 Monolith Ganesh

 Worshippers and a toad-god (Shivas reincarnation)

 They were all laughing at this guy for asking us to take a photograph of him

Gokarna - Kudlee Beach, Karnataka

On tuesday 30th of November we said goodbye to Benaulim Beach; the friendly locals and shopkeepers from Kashmir, especially Altaf from Timetravellers Shop where we spend many hours chatting, checking out his books and Jaakko teaching him to play guitar.

We took a rickshaw to Margao, then a train from Margao (Madgaon Trainstation) to Gokarna. With only 3 platforms it was still very confusing where we had to wait and in which train we had to jump. Luckily we were not the only tourists going to Gokarna so we followed eachother everywhere like cows, while wondering and asking around. As expected the train arrived an hour later than planned. The trains are quite dirty in here. We took our seat next to a sleeping man, there was place for 6 so we put out backpacks on the bench, Jaakko sat next to them and I sat next to the man with 1 seat inbetween. During the trip the man slept deeper and I kept hoping he wouldn't fall in my direction as his dirty looks made me feel itchy and I already saw imaginary fleas everywhere. A nice thing was that along the way many salesboys kept walking back and forth offering chai, soda's, chips, candy, samosas etc. Three hours (and many staring looks of man acting like they've never seen womans legs in shorts before) later we arrived on Gokarna Road Station. Trying to ignore the taxirickshawdrivers screaming for tourists, we walked to a local bus that would bring us to town.

We already picked out a guesthouse beforehand so we knew where to walk. We have a nice spacious room on the thirth floor with our own bathroom, a squatting toilet this time and  only cold water. A big plus is our balcony surrounded by palmtrees with a hammock (hangmat) and also it's the first time that  we have a mosquitonet over the bed. 

Balcony

After arrival we walked through the Main street and witnessed how more relaxed this pilgrimageplace is. Guru's, baba's and Ghandi-look-a-likes mixed with Indian tourists and western hippies on every street, alley and open doorway. This holy town is flowing with spiritiual energy, they say the moment you enter you will lose all sin and bad karma.

Ghats to holy watertank

Streetview, Gokarna

"Abbey Road", Gokarna

 On wednesday we walked through the small streets of this town and were happy to notice that the layed back atmosphere of the night before was still there in daylight. When we saw a sign saying 'Kudlee beach' we decided to follow it, as we knew it wasn't more than 2 km away. We witnessed many different natural landscapes on the way climbing upward untill at some point I wasn't sure anymore if we took the right way. After asking a bypasser we heard it wasn't far anymore, "just follow the creek". Around the corner it looked as if we came from inside a split rock mountain with a small waterflow. We carefully stepped on the rocks and jumped our last steps right into the sand; Kudlee Beach! A small paradise for beachlovers, hippies and yoga/meditation practioners. 

The main (and only) road to Kudlee beach

We were a bit overheated so we looked for a nice shady beachshack where we had some fresh lemon-mint juice and an avocado shake while enjoying the view. We took a 'luxury' way back to Gokarna Beach over sea by a small wooden taxiboat.

In the afternoon Jaakko started to feel sick and stayed in bed with fever that luckily disappeared after nightfall, bananas and tender care.

The next day we tried to reserve sleeper bus to Hampi but unfortunately somebody had cut down the towns phonelines - no internet nor phone on any travel agent - they told us to come back later. but we managed to buy tickets eventually via mobile phone and tonight we are taking a nightbus to Hampi.

Gokarna Beach hillview