Mysore. It's not an Eye Sore

For more pictures, see the album.

Actually, it's the most beautiful city we've seen in India. It's known as the "garden city" because of its tree lined streets. We arrived around noon in Mysore at Ranjani's family homestead. There, we had an impromptu lunch and met her family in the midst of the chaos of party preparations. The meal finished with our introduction to Mysore Pak, which is a sweet made of chickpea flour, sugar and lots of ghee. Hunting down the best would become one of our goals in Mysore.

After lunch we dropped our stuff off at the university guesthouse, where Ranjani's family were graciously putting us up, and then went shopping. Catherine wanted Ranjani's help so we went kurta shopping. Kurtas are a kind of Indian tunic and Catherine wanted a nice one that she could wear to the birthday party on Sunday and then wear as a dress back in the US. After examining many pre made kurtas, and finding them all having too much embroidery, or crazy styling or too loose, she was directed upstairs to the fabric department. There, after much discussion with a tailor, Catherine decided to custom tailor two dresses, one a simple peacock green affair and the other a more complicated red and gold one. All for less than $100.

We then visited the government run memorabilia shop called the Cavery where we picked up some Mysore silk scarves and ties to use as gifts. Then it was dinner at Nalpak, a local chain where we had our first taste of Mysore masala dosa, which was fluffier than previous dosas we had had and filled with a tasty potato filling.

The next morning, we decided to change accommodations. Unfortunately, the people running the university guesthouse had been getting lazy and hadn't maintained it well so it was dirty and the plumbing had some serious issues. After checking into the new hotel, we went for our cooking class at Anu's Bamboo Hut. Anu runs a lunch only restaurant that caters to the local yoga student crowd. Mysore is a big center for learning Yoga because the master of Ashtanga Yoga made his home in Mysore. Up to 2009, you could come to learn with him, but since his passing, his kids have taken up the mantle. To come and train, you need to commit to a number of months of study and come in on a student visa, not a visitor's visa. Also, if you want to be a true Ashtanga teacher you have to commit to coming back for another session with the masters ever year or two. It's a lot of dedication.

As for our cooking class, it was a packed class with about 20 other yoga students. We asked Anu for a gluten free class, which meant learning how to make Mysore masala dosa. Apparently that piqued the interest of many of the yoga students. Anu was a great teacher and we learned some great tips like finding out that Indians always put mustard seed in the oil at the beginning of a curry, or to add ginger later in the cooking process so that the flavor stays fresher. We also learned that dosas require real planning. To make the batter, you have to soak the rice, gram dal and chana dal for at least 8 hours before blending. The batter then needs to ferment for another 8 hours depending on the temperature. You basically have to commit to a 24 hour process. However, the wait is worth it, the dosas were excellent: nice crispy bottom and fluffy tops. Anyway, Anu's recipe are posted separately on the blog.

After the cooking class, we went to check out the Mysore Palace. It's probably the biggest tourist draw in Mysore and it's really easy to see why. In the 1800s, the old palace was burned in a fire and so the King at the time requisitioned a palace to be built with no expenses spared. It was designed by a British architect so it's a fascinating combination Victorian, Indian and Muslim architecture. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring in cameras so I don't have pictures of the inside. There are some amazing stained class roofs made in Scotland that were incredibly memorable.

40ft tall golden Buddah's anybody?

After the palace, we made a brief stop in the ancient bazaar. It's a great open market with colorful piles of festival color powders, bales of banana leaves, tons of fresh veggies and even cows roaming the aisles. After the fun time in the market, we went back to the dress store for a fitting and I did some shopping for some casual long sleeved shirts and pants. Then, we went back to our hotel for dinner and to turn in for the evening.

In the morning, we drove out to Bylakuppe, which is a Tibetan refugee camp a few hours from Mysore. The Tibetans have settled in quite well and it's an impressive little town. First, crossing the line, all of a sudden, everything is much cleaner, there is very little trash on the ground and there are monks everywhere. The highlight is definitely the temples, which include three, 40 foot tall golden Buddah statues. Along with the main statues, there are many colorful paintings of deities, teachers and other important Buddhist figures. It was definitely worth the trip.

After the temple, we had lunch at one of the random tibetan restaurants (instead of McDonalds where our driver tried to direct us), mostly to have the opportunity to try some tibetan food. There was some confusion, mostly because of the language barrier, so the meal could have been better, but we had some tasty stir fried veggies and steamed bread that were unique.

For our next stop, we went to the bird sanctuary near Mysore. It's a dinky place, but most importantly, it there are a number of islands that have been left for birds to roost on or to act as a stop on a migration. You can take a little rowboat ride around the islands or just walk along the shore and watch the plethora of birds hooting and hollering. It was worth the visit to see all the different birds, although you can't really spend more than 45 min there.

Back in town, we picked up Catherine's dress and then got dressed for the birthday party. The party itself was a charming little event for Ranjani's parents. We were touched to be a part of it. It had a great turnout. Most of her Dad's students from over the years even showed up. It's hard for some of us to imagine going to our advisor's 70th birthday party. The food at the event was also very spicy. We had been thinking that overall, we were surprised how little spiciness we had encountered on the trip, but the reception food definitely showed that the cooks along the way had done a deliberate job of toning down the heat for western palates.

In the morning, we had breakfast with Ranjani and said our goodbyes before visiting a couple of last sights in Mysore. First, we hit the silk factory. It was an awesome stop. There's no real "tour" per se, but they let you just walk through the factory. It's largely automated and they do everything from boiling the silk cocoons to folding the finished saris. As you wander through the factory the workers are really helpful. When we looked lost, they pointed us where to go and some even showed us more in detail what they were doing. One weaver even let us feel the fabric as the loom was clacking away. There was definitely no safety precautions for guests beyond your common sense.

After the silk factory, we made a quick stop at the charming little railway museum before hitting the road for the Bangalore airport. On our way out of India, we flew from Bangalore to Mumbai before connecting with our late night flight to Hong Kong. We thought that a 4 hour layover time in Mumbai would be plenty, but wow, were we wrong. The domestic terminal at the Mumbai airport is on the side of the runway from the international terminal. You have to take a shuttle bus between the terminals, but because you don't have tickets for the international flight yet, they route the bus (via a U-turn), right into the mess of taxis that are dropping people off in the front of the terminal. Then, you need to wait in line to go through security to get into the airport. All of this happens before you can check in. The process took us 2.5 hours and we had to bribe three of the porters to skip the line and get into the airport in time to have our bags checked. It was a very unfortunate and stressful last experience in India.