Maharajah Palace
Autor: Nuts in India | Publicado: 2010-06-16T01:37:00+05:30


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Mysore ... city for honeymooners... local honeymooners...

We left Bangalore last Monday, we were sad, but it was time to get moving. We took an auto-rickshaw ride for about 45 minutes from South to North Bangalore to catch the bus to Mysore. The&nbsp; bus journey lasted for about 3.5 hrs, one of those hours was spent on traffic jams getting out of the city. The driver had the sound system from the bus playing one of his favorite radio stations while negotiating the busy traffic. Meanwhile the passengers divided their attention between their MP3 players and constant calls on cell phones.

The sky darkened and we entered a storm, we cruised along the road listening to Hindi music with endless honking and watching the monsoon rain falling on the countryside.

The rain ended while we entered Mysore's city limits. The bus station is under restorations and chaos is the keyword to describe the movement of buses, people, bags and auto-rickshaw drivers.

We got our bags and went to our hotel in Hasar Rd., just by the side of the Maharajah's Palace. Along the way we had flashbacks of Bali, when everyone on the street tried to sell us something, a rickshaw ride, a tour, hotel rooms, sandalwood fans, postcards, shoes, food... We made it to the hotel and went out to explore the city before nightfall. Once again we swam through all kinds of offers of services and advise on what to do and went to see the outside of the Palace and find our way around some of the streets of our new home. Banks, shops, and supermarkets were readily identified along with the silk saree and gold jewelry shops. The best though, was along the back streets, where the spices, chilies, coffee, tea and all kinds of wares were offered in bulk for local traders. We navigated the maze of rickshaws, bulls, cows, and shopper as if we were back home.

Today we went to visit the palace, of course we had to ignore again our ever present friends offering us the best deals possible from transport to souvenirs, but we made it. We dully paid the overpriced "foreign visitor fee" (ten times the price of the locals) and mingled around hundreds of Hindus visiting the palace... school excursions, families, local tourists, and ... newly-wed (the brides still with the henna painted hands and feet, with smiles from ear to ear).

Since I mentioned local tourists, we found familiar faces, two Sikhs we had spotted on the Lalbagh Botanical Garden, and then at a Garudah Shopping Mall in Bangalore were also visiting the palace, we immediately recognized each other. They asked where we were from and we learn they came from Jammu &amp; Kashmir, one of the Northern states between Pakistan and China, at the foot of the Himalaya.

The Palace itself is decorated with all the possible carvings, stained glass, granite columns, sculptures, the whole style a unique fruit of 19th Century fusion of art deco and Hindi traditional decoration. As "foreigners" we could profit of an "audio-tour", a set of player-headphone with information about the palace. The ironic detail of the visit was to find out that the Raj was actually a puppet ruler for the English.

Best to last... we sat down at the fence near the palace, to rest and watch people come and go, their clothes, their behavior. As for the behavior part, we were object of much curiosity. Many pictures where taken... some very sneaky just pointed their cell phone cameras to us, others come and asked us to take pictures with them, like our Sikh tourist friends, and the family that insisted that Claudia held their baby, who was not wearing any kind of diapers.... At this time our cameras were in the mandatory camera locker for anyone visiting inside the palace... so we couldn't take any pictures of them…


Terça, 15 de Junho de 2010
&nbsp;Mysore... cidade para casais em lua-de mel, casais locais...
&nbsp;Deixamos Bangalore na Segunda, ficamos tristes, mas já era hora de partir. Demoramos 45 minutos de auto-rickshaw indo do sul ao norte da cidade para chegar no rodoviária, onde pegamos nosso ônibus para Mysore. O trajeto demorou 3.5 horas, das quais, uma hora foi passada no trânsito tentando sair da cidade. O motorista sintonizou a sua rádio favorita enquanto navegava o trânsito pesado. Enquanto isso os passageiros dividiam sua atenção entre seus tocadores de MP3 e intermináveis conversas no celular.
&nbsp;O céu ficou escuro e entramos numa tempestade, seguiamos a estrada ouvindo musica hindu com buzinadas intemináveis e olhando a chuva das monsões caindo no campo.
A chuva acabou enquanto entravamos em Mysore. O terminal de onibus está em reforma e caos e' a palavra chave para descrever o movimento de onibus, pessoas, malas e motoristas de auto-rickshaw.
&nbsp;Peganos nossas malas e fomos para o hotel em Hasar Rd., bem ao lado do Palacio do Marajá. No caminho nos lembramos de nossas visitas em Bali onde todo mundo tentava nos vender algo: corrida em um rickshaw, tour , hotel, leques de sândalo, cartões postais, sapatos, comida...&nbsp;
Conseguimos chegar no hotel e saimos para explorar a cidade antes do escurecer.&nbsp;Uma vez mais, precisamos "nadar" através de inúmeras ofertas de servicos e conselhos do que fazer. Fomos ver a fachada do Palacio e nos orientar nas ruas do nosso novo lar. Logo identificamos os bancos, lojas e supermercados junto com as lojas de saris de seda e joias de ouro. Mas o melhor estava nas ruas de trás, onde as especiarias, pimentas, café, chá e todo tipo de produtos estavam 'a venda para os comerciantes locais. Nós navegamos o labirinto de rickshaws, touros, vacas e comerciantes como se estivessemos em casa.
&nbsp;Hoje visitamos o Palácio, claro que tivemos que ignorar nossos amigos oferecendo as melhores vantagens de transporte a souvenirs, mas conseguimos. Pagamos o preço excessivo cobrado de turistas estrangeiros (dez vezes o preco dos turistas locais - e ainda assim uns US$ 5) e nos misturamos 'a multidao de turistas hindus visitando o palácio... excursões de escolas, familias, turistas hindus e recem-casados (as noivas ainda com as mãos e pés pintados de henna, com sorrisos de orelha a orelha). Já que mencionei turistas, encontramos duas pessoas que ja tínhamos visto antes, dois Sikhs que vimos no Jardim Botanico Lalbagh e no shopping center Garuda, nos reconhecemos immediatamente. Eles perguntaram de onde eramos e nos contaram que vinhamde Jammu &amp; Kashmir, um dos estados ao norte da India entre o Pakistao e a China, aos pés do Himalaya.
&nbsp;O Palácio está decorado com esculturas, vitrais, colunas de granito, estátuas, num estilo único do seculo XIX, fruto da fusão de da Art Deco e decoração tradicional Hindu. Como 'estrangeiros" pudemos usufruir de uma "audio-tour", recebemos um conjunto de player e fone de ouvido que nos deu informações sobre o palácio. O detalhe irônico da visita foi descubrir que o Rajá era uma marionete do governo Inglês.
&nbsp;O melhor para o final... ficamos sentados na cerca fora do palácio para descansar e ver as pessoas passando, suas roupas e comportamentos. Na parte do comportamento, fomos objeto de muita curiosidade. As pessoas tiravam fotos nossas, alguns de forma dissimulada e outros vinham e pediam para tirar fotos conosco, como nossos amigos Sikhs e a familia que insistiu que a Claudia segurasse um bebê, que não estava usando fraldas... Durante todo estes eventos, nossas cameras estavam no guarda-malas, pois e' proibido tirar fotos dentro do palácio... nós não tiramos uma fotos deles...