Doug’s World

4 Lanes to Mysore

On my final day in India (Saturday), I took a trip to Mysore with Pawan from Sonata and Kumar, our guide. We took the new highway that has recently replaced the old bumpy road for most of the way, with a few areas still under construction. The signs referred to this project as the “The 4-Laneification Project,” and it was truly the best road I’ve seen in India, smooth wide asphalt with concrete curbs. We reached speeds of over 50MPH! I found it interesting the way the road cut right through buildings in some of the towns along the way.

We made several stops during the 3-hour drive to Mysore:

A festival taking place along the highway. Loud persistent drumming, and a guy dancing around like a whirling dervish (wrong culture, right image) while a couple hundred people watched.

A government-run silk auction, where the cocoons are purchased from people who raise the silkworms in nearby villages.

An open-air market, where vendors were selling everything from fruits and vegetables to pots and pans to crushed limestone.

A bird sanctuary, where thousands of migratory birds gather in the trees. There were also lots of bats hanging in the trees (”flying foxes” as the locals call them), and a few crocodiles in the water. I only saw one crocodile entirely out of the water, a small one, and didn’t get a decent shot of it but here’s what I got. And here are a few photos of the birds: photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4 photo5 photo6

Then we arrived at the palace in Mysore. It’s a spectacular structure, built about 100 years ago by a very popular Maharaja who was the autonomous leader of Mysore State when the British ruled over surrounding areas. We stopped at the main entrance for a photo before entering. Unfortunately, they don’t allow cameras inside, where there are spectacular details made from carved teak, marble, ivory, gold, silver, and stained glass. So I only snapped a few photos outside before entering, including this one and this one.

Hey, I mentioned on the way to India how I sat on the airplane next to Moin, who works in the same building as me back in Redmond. Well on the flight from Mumbai to Amsterdam last night, I sat next to another Building 18 resident, Kevin Wittkopf, who was headed for France to meet with some developers after a few days in India (Bangalore and Pune) with Vijay Laxmi, yet another Building 18 resident.

And then on the flight from Amsterdam to Seattle, I sat next to another Microsoft person. More on that shortly …

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 12th, 2006 at 8:57 pm. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.