We made an elaborate plan to go to Mysore, and just like any other plan we didn't stick to it.
Initially the plan was to leave early in the morning but then there were some glitches and we finally settled on starting at 4pm saturday 25th Feb 2011. Plan also included that we all will go in Amar's car.
But then we were 6 of us and so i decided to take my bike too.
A bike is obviously slower,all the more with a pillion, on highways than a car, I started early at around 4.30 from domlur and reached Nayandanahalli and joined the mysore road . Here I filled up my bike's tank and started off at 5.20.
Its always fun driving in mysore road . But as luck would have it right after Rajarajeshwari nagar there was an interceptor waiting for me.
I was doing just 70's and the traffic police didn't like that. After coughing up 300 bucks i continued my journey.
We had started after lunch and weren't hungry at all. I did get very thirsty at times. We stopped only 2 times before we reached Srirangapatna.
Now the initial plan was that the rest will come in the car and probably overtake us somewhere on the way.But we had reached Srirangapatna before them and they were still in Ramnagaram. So we halted in Srirangapatna and bought the booze.
A large old monk and a large vat 69.
There were hardly any decent shops for liquor . I am used to buying liqour in Madhuloka kind of shops and didn't really want to visit any of the dirty local shops. Srirangapatna came to the rescue with an average, but better than the rest, liquor shop. Then we started off with the liqour to mysore
We had booked a hotel - The Viceroy in mysore. I wish i could write something good about the hotel but I can't. When we had called them and booked, they had quoted a price and when we reach there it increases by 500. We could have accepted that if we felt that the rooms were worth that much.
Simple facts - the bathroom leaked, the basin was partially clogged ,the TV's sound didn't work and picture quality was no good either.
Other things were ok but we certainly didn't feel it was worth the money. we decided on having dinner in the hotel as it was already quite late in the night. the food was below average . Right then we realized that we got the booze but forgot to get the soft drinks to mix it with. So we were roaming around the streets of mysore at around 10.30 for cold drinks.
It was not just disappointing but rather surprising. None of the shops had coke. Some shops had, but it wasn't cold. Finally i managed to get a 2 litre 7up and three 500ml pepsi.
Once back at the room we got cozy and started boozing. Things obviously got better after that. and for obvious reasons its hard to recall what all happened but some of the interesting things -
I usually mix every drink with 7up/sprite kind of drinks and ppl liked it this time . So that goes to my recommended list.
Someone feels that his nose is gone(yet again) and finds it amusing to rub his non existant nose on the pillow, obviously we did the same.
For some reason we started singing - handla glass , glassla scotch, eyes fullu tearu
All this resulted in some very memorable pictures which couldn't be uploaded due to their extremely embarrassing nature.
We slept off wondering what we'll do the next day. I got a bit less than 5 hours of sleep. I got up and found everyone in different states of awareness. Some were suffering from insomnia while some were certainy somniac.
We managed to wake everyone up and ready by around 11 . we checked out of the hotel. and went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast.
We finally decided we'll visit Chamundi hills . There is a temple at the top but we weren't going to the temple, certainly not after seeing the kind of queue there was . We got a decent view from the temple. We walked down a fleet of stairs to a view point .
Climbing back was excruciating, thanks to the alcohol induced dehydration and the dry sunny weather ..
We returned back to the city and had our favourite domino's pizza .
We saw the St. Philomena's church on the way but didn't go inside.
We decided that we'll visit Tipu's palace in Srirangapatna as it comes on the way. Neeraj drove my bike from Mysore to sri rangapatna and i got a much needed rest.
Tipu's palace is rather simple compared to the palaces they show in movies. It was peaceful and the only interesting artifacts inside the museum were the few weapons that were on display.
We sat outside in the garden , it was really peaceful except for a crow, which went away eventually.
I was pretty rejuvenated after this and we decided that for the sake of safety I'll drive solo and rest 5 will come in car. so we drove straight from Sriranga patna to the CCD after ramnagaram.
On the way we saw some accidents, a truck had fallen on its side off the road, there was another where a car just drove off the road but no one was hurt, and then we hit a huge road block cause by a minor accident .
I hit a max speed of 110 and but most of the times drove at around 80. Had to slow down after it was dark though. After some rest in CCD I came home and the others went to theirs.
At the end it was 307.9 km on the odometer . Now thats the longest i've ever driven in my life. And all this for only 7 liters of petrol.
