DAY 5 - Seeing the Sights

Today is Saturday and tomorrow is the moon so I'm off practice for a couple of days. Actually slept in, until 6:15! That's pretty late since I've been waking up by 3-4am. My upstairs roommate Geoffrey and I hired Saddu to take us around town in his rickshaw this morning to see some of the sights...

Just driving around here is an event; there is something to see everywhere you look! Cows wandering around eating flowers, people lining up for lunch at the street vendors, cars, motorcycles, and rickshaws about to collide at every intersection. I notice a giant billboard for baby products with a chubby little fair-skinned blue-eyed baby on it and it seems so strangely out of place, but I think part of the beauty of this place may be the way that nothing seems to make much sense at all. Driving, or even riding here, is not for the faint of heart! It's a noisy, smelly, chaotic sensory overload and it's quite an experience.

We go to Chamundi Hill, one of the 8 Sacred Hills of South India (or so the sign says). There is a temple at the top devoted to the goddess Chamundeswari, who slayed the demon Mahisashura to protect the people of Mysore. Saddu parks the rickshaw and walks with us to the temple. On the way, there are vendors and beggars everywhere, "Hello, flowers? Yes, flowers for temple. You give, Gods like", and "Hello lady, coke? Pineapple? Fresh Pineapple?" or just "Money, give money." We get flowers and vermilion for puja at the temple and venture on. Saddu takes us to the "special entrance" which costs 20 rupees to use and we don't understand why, but we appreciate it on the way out when we see the long line of Indian families waiting to get in the temple's main entrance. On the way down we stop at the giant black Nandi, Shiva's bull, and make another offering there. We are marked with vermilion again and don't drink the holy water offered here, placing it instead on our heads. A man follows me with a tray of small deity statues, "Shiva, lady, you see? Shiva God! Ok, no Shiva? Ganesh, look, Ganesh, lady, yes, you take. No Ganesh? Look here, baby, lady, baby, little baby... you take baby..." I keep saying no but he's following me and not giving up and when I look at him again I can't help but start laughing; his giant smile is radiating good humor. "Baby, little baby, look, you take baby, little baby, baby baby..." he's holding out this tiny little Ganesh and he's so funny I'm cracking up, but I'm not buying it so I say goodbye and we move on. On the way down we see monkeys (no they were not throwing poop) and then we head to the palace.

Mysore Palace is a huge palace where the royal family used to live and it's one of the biggest tourist sites in Mysore. It's beautiful, but we don't do the audio tour, so I can't say too much more about it. I did see a couple of things here that were really memorable: people riding an elephant passed me so closely I could almost reach out and touch this beautiful creature, and, I encountered my very first Indian toilet, not only Indian but outdoors as well. All I have to say about the latter is thank God for good yogini balance and Purell!

A couple of tourist sites were enough for today so we go for for unlimited thali lunch at Dasaprakash, and then stop at a tailor's where Geoffrey selects a gorgeous raw silk and gets measured for a custom made suit before we head back home to nap... rest days are exhausting!

(P.S. Still trying to figure out camera connection, will post lots of photos soon!!!)