Published: January 22nd 2018
Woolly says – It had seemed like a good idea, in fact a brilliant idea and although tired from our overnight journey to Bangalore having dropped off our belongings, changed and found some breakfast we took our first trip on the Indian Metro. It proved simple and easy to use and after two trains that took us through the city below ground we popped up at the central train station, managed to find a ticket office before realising that the next train wasn’t until 1.30pm, not a problem, to use up the two hours we can join a queue to sort out our next train tickets we thought. Having stood in the foreigner’s queue with our completed paperwork it all seemed to be going well and just as our tickets were about to pop out of the machine the lady who had been serving us asked for the cash. Jo smiled sweetly and offered her card, ‘No card’ said the woman, ‘but it says cards accepted on your sign there’ Jo pointed out, ‘Not today’, we all sighed and shuffled back out of the queue and set off to find an ATM.
Plenty of machines to put our cards into but none of them were giving us money, having reached the point where you start to panic because you think that your now in a country and need to contact your bank and sort your card out, we decided to walk a further mile or so and try one last time, notes popped out and we high fived each other and raced back to the train station, No time to continue our onward travel plans as our train for the day was now standing at the platform.
Woolly says – We raced through the station and galloped down the stairs and into the heaving mass of people, way too many feet for me to deal with so having jumped into Jo’s arms I let her take the strain of getting onto the train. Two female train police smiled and waved at us as the train crawled slowly into the station and people started to climb on board before it had stopped, I could feel us being pushed and shoved from behind just as one of the officers blow her whistle and started banging her long bamboo cane on the train, shouting at the passengers who were climbing over each other to get on. It was like the parting of the red sea, as the hoards parted and us and another British couple were taken on board by the lovely policewomen and shown to a seat before everyone else started to dive in on top of us, it wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t pretty.
We were crammed into seats with seven or eight people sitting in spaces meant for three, many climbed onto the luggage racks while the reminder hung onto anything they could to stay on the now moving train.
Woolly says – Having squeezed in between the girls I breathed a sigh of relief and thought I would lighten the mood with a few basic facts about our destination. Mysore is located in the foothills of the Chamundi Hills and served as the capital city of the Kingdom of Mysore for nearly six centuries from 1399 until 1956. The Kingdom was ruled by the Wadiyar dynasty, with a brief period of interregnum in the 1760s and 70s when Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan were in power. The city is known for its heritage structures and palaces, including the Mysore Palace, our destination for the day, well afternoon. As the hours passed I wondered why we were spending three hours on a train (and three hours back) with probably only an hour or so to see the wonderful palace itself, had we gone mad!
I had also had this thought and as the train chugged its way onwards realised that the only reason we were doing this today was because it was Sunday and the Palace was lit up at dark on a Sunday, the fact that we would have to leave before that happened seemed to have escaped our thoughts, I smiled at my small friend and we sat in silence both wondering about our insanity,
Woolly says – I’ve always wondered about hers, mine has never been in question! As people slowly but surely left the train at each station we eventually pulled into Mysore, haggled over the cost of a rickshaw and set off to see the splendour. Ambavilas Palace, otherwise known as the Mysore Palace is the official residence of the Wadiyar dynasty and the seat of the Kingdom of Mysore. The land on which the palace now stands was originally where the citadel had once stood. Built for the first time in the 14th century, it has been demolished and constructed multiple times. The current structure was constructed between 1897 and 1912, after the Old Palace was burnt to the ground. Pulling up at some huge yellow and white gates gave a small inkling of how magnificent this was going to be. Having paid for our tickets and entered the grounds the sight that met my eyes was wonderful. A large white temple stood to the left and having admired the carvings on it we found ourselves at a wall of flowers were everyone was taking selfies. With time not on our side we decided to wander across the grounds first before entering the impressive domed building, huge archways stood at all the entrances to the park and having passed another impressive white shrine I nearly fell over my tusks as a group of elephants being ridden by their carers walked past us followed by a herd of yellow tinged cows which had been dyed for Pongal, not as pretty as the chalked cows of Madurai but they seemed proud of themselves and their yellow tinge.
The elephants made our day and having photographed the last gateway into the grounds we turned around and headed to the shoe storage area to relieve our feet of footwear.
Woolly says – Entering the palace led us up a stairway and into a room filled with columns of blues, aqua and greys the carvings and intricate details were excellent. The walls surrounding showed paintings from the days of the Raj with elephants featuring wearing the dreaded howdah. Under the paintings the walls were of beautiful yellow and blue ceramic tiles, all very grand. As we followed the signs we arrived in a room full of large canvas portraits of stern looking men and women who had once been a part of the royal family, why don’t people smile in these pictures? Is there life so miserable, I contemplated and decided that when I was crowned king of my own country all pictures would be of me and my subjects looking happy.
As Woolly was getting delusions of grandeur we passed through a whole room filled with caskets that had once held letters and trinkets, each box beautifully decorated, before entering a throne room with a magnificent wooden ceiling and several red and gold seats ready for royal bottoms to rest on, someone appeared to think that he had already reached this status and as I glared at him to get down, he plopped onto the ground and disappeared through the next doorway.
Woolly says – I thought I looked very grand and the throne the fitted me extremely well. The columns in the next room were incredible, the aqua blue melding with the gold and reds, the placement of the columns made it look almost like a room of mirrors and the floor was, well let’s just say sliding was great fun! Before moaning minny could dampen my fun I took one last run and slid out of the door and onto a large terraced area with incredible ceilings and views over the park. As my neck started to ache from peering upwards I found myself going down a sweeping staircase passing doors that were inlaid with mother of pearl in the most delicate of patterns. Another large hall presented itself with a slightly more turquoise blue intercepted with gold, too many pillars to count but each one was a work of art. Just as I reached the outside once more the women caught up with me, before Jo could say a word about sliding on floors and banisters I pointed to a sign for the current residential wing of the palace, they collected their shoes and headed towards the ticket office leaving me to guard the bags.
The residential part wasn’t going to happen with the charges being twenty times more for foreigners than that for the local people, it was out of our budget range.
Woolly says – It wasn’t the end of the world and having checked the time we needed to get our skates on to make our return train. A short rickshaw ride took us back to the station and having walked the length of the train we finally managed to find two seats in a women’s only carriage, I looked at Jo and she looked at me, I suggested that going into my bag for a snack would solve the problem, an idea that she acted on. As the train pulled away I stuck my head out to find complete bedlam, everyone was squeezed in, with each three person seat trying to hold ten women all of them shouting and gesticulating at the tops of their voices, the three hours seemed an eternity and I could see that Jo was struggling to sit in one position for so long.
My back was in agony and I couldn’t move, things got worse as each station we stopped at we acquired more and more women, one women had taken to wrapping branches of leaves on the floor so anyone trying to get on or off had to climb over the pile as we pulled into our stop a sense of relief washed over me that it was about to end.
Woolly says – Well it certainly ended when the police boarded the train, we and several others had stood to get off, which having climbed over the huge pile of leaves and tried not to knock a young child out of a hammock that had been suspended across the baggage racks meant we were finally near to the door. As the door opened rather than letting us out hundreds of people started to climb in, over peoples heads and through our legs, we stood helpless until a police whistle sounded and several long batons appeared in my vision smacking those trying to get in and sending them back off the train, Jo let two young children off before fighting her way down the steps and onto the platform, as we looked around for Zoe she was lost in the melee of arms and legs until another officer pulled her free, it was carnage, weren’t the religions here supposed to be peaceful? Where was respect for each other? We walked away from the exit and crowds and found an empty seat where the three of us perched trying to recover ourselves. Both of the girls were shaky and having found the water bottles from the bags I tended to them until they seemed capable of speech and movement once more. ‘Were not doing that again’ Said Jo, no one was going to argue over that, hopefully the next train ride will be a little more civilised!