Mysore, Part I: Srirangapatna

Saturday morning we woke up at 8am ready to go to Mysore:

the city of mysore is about 90 miles south of bangalore but we knew it was going to quite the trek. we invited a friend from the office, Murali, he is from the state of Tamil Nadu and he had never visited mysore so we thought we would let him tag along. plus he had a car so really he helped us out a lot!:

Bangalore being the big city it is was of course full of cars and people on saturday morning even at 9am. it took us two hours to get out of the city and get on the road. it was raining but that didnt hinder our spirits at all. the road trip was way fun. we drove through beautiful country and it looked all so adventurous. by the time 11am came along all of us were starving so we stopped at a roadside hotel, which is what they call restaruants, and had some idli:

idli is a pancake thingy that is served with chutney and sambar. its really good and you can find it pretty cheap for a good breakfast food. the next place we went was a small town on the outside of Mysore called Srirangapatna. it is the location of an old palace of King Tipu and a large temple:

we were able to walk through the temple and see all the stonework on the inside. it was really interesting. they made us take of our shoes to walk through it and it felt really good on my feet to walk on cool smooth stone. after the temple we saw that there was an obelisk behind the temple out next to a river so we hopped in the car and drove out there. it was beautiful:

now the obelisk was beautiful too but really these were the highlight shots. one of super cool bridges, one for cars and pedestrians and one for the train. that place was really fun, we went down and got in the water a little, robby ride an old school bicycle, and we got to listen to two wonderfully pestering salesman try to sell us wooden boxes and fans!!