Mysore, Ranganatittu, srirangapattana and KRS

Majestic Mysore Palace

We had been waiting for rains to plan for that mystical western ghats trip during rainy season. But alas it is July and there are no signs of rains. The malnad trip had to wait. It had been a long time since last trip to Goa in Feb. Google map was summoned and places searched. Among many places, there was Mysore, although we have passed through Mysore umpteen number of times, it was a long time since we actually visited Mysore itself. So a plan was drawn, it has to be a two nights 3 day trip, should cover Ranganatittu bird sanctuary, srirangapatna and KRS. Hotel booking was done, leave applied, vehicle serviced and we were all excited to go.

We started from home early at 6:30 AM, hit the NICE road soon and Mysore road there on. It was  Friday and traffic was less, we soon reached Maddur and stopped for breakfast at Adigas on the outskirts of Maddur. Kamat as usual was crowded and we know it is overrated. We all had a nice breakfast, and soon headed to Ranganatittu bird sanctuary. We missed a turn to the sanctuary and went half way towards KRS and had to return back.

Serene Entrance of the bird Santuary

I had gone through some blogs and understood that best time to visit the bird sanctuary is early morning 8:00 – 8:30. We reached there by 8:30, and were greeted by a serene backwaters and thick vegetation. We got a boat for four of us. No one else was there except another boat with 5-6 people with huge cameras and lenses.

Ready for the boat ride.. Ishaan Cautious.

Our boatman was very knowledgeable about the birds and explained us various types of birds and from where they have come from. This place should be a heaven for bird watchers and enthusiasts. We saw many varieties of birds like painted stork, common spoonbill, egrets, Black headed Ibis, snake bird etc etc. We also saw a bat colony.

Painted Stork

Snake Bird and black headed ibis

White egret in Flight

Time alone, away from the crowd.

Then boatman heard something and slowed down the boat and took it to a corner. There they were... a pair of kingfishers under a bush. They were beautiful. Wish my camera had a big zoom lenses to capture the same.  Then we saw some crocodiles moving in the water, it was scary for a moment. There was a crocodile whose mouth was packed with fishing net, felt bad for it.

Beautiful little kingfisher

Ooops crocodile

Wanted fish .. got the net .. sorry buddy

We were back to the shore after an hour of boating and bird watching. As we headed back to parking lot, people had slowly started trickling in. We then went to Srirangapatna, Sri Ranganatha swamy temple. There was not much crowd and the darshan was peaceful.

Sri Ranganath Temple

Idol of Garuda, inside the temple.

Ishaan at the temple entrance

This canon rolled back and fell into the dungeon during one of the wars

Col. Bailey's Dungeon, is near the Ranganath swamy temple, it is built during Tipu's rule to imprison British officers (POWs).

Bailey's Dungeon

Tippu's Summer palace

We then headed to other side of  the highway for Tippu's summer palace. It is a small palace with vast gardens. The paintings on the walls of this palace are magnificent. Many depicting the times of tippu sultan and the wars. This is a must see. Next stop was at Gosai ghat on river kaveri, a nice little place. We spent some time there and headed to Mysore.

Entrance to the palace, beautiful sky

Busy watching a Huge JCB at work in the river.

Kaveri

We headed straight to our stay for next two days, Jade garden. Check in was smooth and quick. Since the weather was good we were still quite fresh. We had lunch at the restaurant, took some rest and headed to the Mysore Palace.

Mysore Palace

Saanu and Ishu

Bronze Lion statue outside Mysore Palace

Varahaswamy Temple, infront of the palace

Grand Entrance of Mysore Palace.

Mounted Police Unit

It was drizzling slightly as we roamed around infront of the palace. We had to rush inside as the visit inside the palace would be closed soon. As we go from room to room, cannot help but to imagine the pomp and splendour during the lives of Royal family. We then headed to St Philominas church, there was some function going on inside the church, we took some snaps from the outside. We had a nice dinner at Curry Leaf restaurant at Jade Garden and retired for the day.

Entrance of St Philominas church, Mysore

Side Entrance of the church.

Day 2:

Plan for the day2 was to visit Mysore Zoo, Visit Jayachamaraj art gallery and KRS if possible. Had a nice breakfast buffet which was complimentary. Headed to the zoo. As per Pooja's advice straight away took the tickets for a tour of zoo in a battery operated vehicle. Ishaan was surprised and scared to suddenly see so many birds and animals. Whenever we said Ishaan see peacock, his reply with a bad face, peacock would bite me, lion would bite me, etc. It did not take him long time to realize that these animals would not come out of the cages. He was back in his elements again.

African Elephant

Jaguar

Lion ಕಡಿತೈತಿ, peacock ಕಡಿತೈತಿ

Flamingo!!

Beautiful Walkway

My turn to push now.

Rhino

With kids, ride in this is a must.

Mum's Little man

Entrance to gorilla section

After the ride in the vehicle, we walked to the select sections of the zoo. It started drizzling again, we had hot mirchi bhajji's and coffee at the canteen. After some more walking around we were hungry again and we headed for lunch. In search of proper south Indian meals we went to hotel Das Prakash. Food was OK, it is not what we expected from Das Prakash.


In the evening we headed for KRS. We roamed around the Brindavan gardens and then walked towards the other end for the musical fountain show. This can be avoided the quality of the musical fountain show has deteriorated over the years and so is the quality of Brindavan gardens. However the size of the crowd has increased significantly. Not worth the trouble.

We had dinner on our way back and retired for the day.

Shenga .. Shenga ..

Nice snap taken by Saanvi

Brindavan Gardens, KRS dam wall in the background

Musical fountains

Best avoided

Day 3:

We had breakfast and went straight to Chamundi hills. We reached the top by 8:00 AM, but alas we were already late. There was no parking available and we were redirected by police to another spot, from where we had to climb up about half a kilometre. We were informed that the queue for the temple would take about 4 hours for darshan. We prayed from outside, took snaps infront of Mahisasura and went towards big nandi.

Chamundeshwari Temple

Mahishasura

View of Mysore from Chamundi hills

Nandi Statue

We went back to Jade Gardens and checked out. We had a pleasant stay here. Would recommend this hotel for anyone visiting Mysore. Went to Sri Jayachamarajendra art gallery. This is a treasure of Art, must see place with huge original paintings and other artifacts.

Jade Garden

JayaChamarajendra Art Gallery

Mysore, pleasant place

We had lunch and bid adieu to Mysore. It is such a nice place, traffic is well managed with wide roads and proper one ways. Reached Bangalore, huge traffic jam welcomed us. It took us long time to reach Roopesh's house. We spent some time with his family and reached home in the evening. It was a relaxed 3 day trip, we all had a great time.