Mysore…The Jewel in the Crown

To win the day however the Swiss Meuron Regiment of mercenaries were brought over from Sri Lanka and were sent into the 
fray first...  

On my Indian bucket list, there are so many places I still want  to visit, though I’ve spent over a year in the country.  They include but not limited to Mysore, Varanasi, Ranthambore National Park, Shimla, Darjeeling and the many festivals I am yet to experience.

Darby, my Indian business partner is aware I also enjoy visiting cemeteries and all things British so we have lots to achieve. As we are on the outskirts of Mysore, we seek an extremely hidden location. The intrepid Mr. Darby finds the Garrison Cemetery after some difficult walking, it's near the last gate of old Mysore. The guide book says it’s open every day, but the gate is padlocked. It takes our driver less than two minutes to open the gate, he lifts the locked gate off its hinges.

For sixty years after the big siege of Srirangapatna in 1799, Mysore, the British East India Company won the day and killed the Muslim leader Tipu Sultan, known  as the “Tiger of Mysore”. To win the day however the Swiss Meuron Regiment of mercenaries were brought over from Sri Lanka and were sent into the fray first, some were buried at the Garrison Cemetery. People died young and irrespective of rank, they all lay in the same field.

We do late lunch at the very regal Lalitha Mahar Palace Hotel. 

Whinging Pome Random Rule number 201: “always enter a hotel as though you own it."

I had visions of staying in this stunning Palace hotel overnight, but it is not to be. The building was erected in 1921 and from the outside it looks like St Paul's in London, but inside it's loudly Italian and you can imagine the regal nature whilst you wine and dine in the big ball blue room.

We rush to the Mysore Palace, the most visited palace in the country. We join a rather large queue to deposit our shoes, and a bigger queue to walk the palace rooms. Everyone is pushing whilst trying to take selfies with the king's portraits and royal furniture behind them. This heavy weekend crowd takes some of the joy out of the tour. The security man with a big stick walks up and down screaming at people for not moving along.

“Welcome to India.”

The  palace was built by a British architect Henry Irwin in 1912 for the then  young monarch and his mother, Majesty Maharani Vani Sannidnna, Regent of Mysore.

It’s essential to also see the palace at night, the lights are spectacular, what a photo shoot. Then our driver, Rajesh goes AWOL with a dead phone, life gets a bit frantic. Cars all slow down in front of the palace so the occupants can snap photos. In the end, we give up finding the driver and take a tuk-tuk to the golf club where we are staying the night.

There is a lot more to see in Mysore, though on principle I WILL NOT go to any  zoo as animals do suffer. We drive round the next day and enjoy the wide streets, monuments, and statues of the Colonial time. We don’t get to the Ritz or the Green Hotel both recommended to visit .

The New York Times ranks Mysore as the 31st place to visit on earth. I fortunately don’t meet any Americans however.

So we completed a whirlwind tour of Mysore, I tick-off one more location  on my Indian Bucket list. We head for the hills, the coffee and Kroog.