Church where St. Philemon's bones are
BEAUTIFUL Golden Temple: Buddhist temple
Mysore Palace
Gopal and I at one of the hindu temples
Ok, sorry its taken me so long, but life always seems to be crazy busy and I always feel one step behind, just trying to catch up. I guess Id rather always feel one step behind then crazy bored because theres nothing to do. So last weekend (2.28&3.1) we went on a school trip to Mysore and Coorg. It was about a 3 hour drive to Mysore and another 2 hours to Coorg. Gopal came and picked us up at 6am on Sat. and we headed out. I slept most of the car ride (waking up with the worst crick in my neck!) and our first stop was a sugar factory. It was pretty neat because there was piles upon piles of discarded sugar cane shells. We walked up to the factory and there were underground pots filled with an orange bubling liquid (which we were told was the sugar fermenting) Next to the pots was a man mixing the concealed sugar goo with a broom type thing…its pretty hard to describe, but very interesting. Our next stop was a beautiful Hindu temple. It was thousands of years old and mind boggling…I say mind boggling because of how vast this temple was, made of pure marble and we were told that the marble slabs were solidly one pieces (which meant that 500 men together carried these slabs miles to the site of the temple to build it) It certainly was something else! After that temple we headed for breakfast where I ordered my fav-Masala Dohsa! After lunch we went up the mountains to the very top to another temple situated at the very peak. This temple was also fascinating, and we went inside and Gopal ushered us up to the fire-blessing and whiffed the smoke in first my face, then Andrews…I asked later what he had done that for and he said he was blessing us with health and wealth. He also put some red powder on our foreheads (kind of like a Bindi) and he said that this was like the Catholicism version of ash. After that temple, we headed to the Mysore Palace. The Mysore palace was one of my favorite parts of the trip! It reminded me of the Biltmore (my family went this past winter) and it was really interesting to see how vastly different the wealth in west is manifested in architecture and that of the East. They were built around the same time, and I took the walking tour with the headphones (like I had in the Biltmore) just learning about each room. After that we went to the Mysore Zoo. It was a huge zoo and very open. By far my favorite animal is the Tapir—if you don’t know what it is I suggest you look it up on youtube….its probably the most hilarious animal ever! At one point it peed, and man that thing was like a rocket! Thought urine was gonna shoot out 30 ft and hit me! I couldn’t stop laughing for about 30 minutes after that. After the zoo we went to a really famous cathedral where the bones of St. Philemon are (Philemon from the bible) and that was really awesome! We then headed the 2 hours to Coorg where a homestay was arranged for us.
Let me just say I LOVED the homestay. It was a very liberal muslim family that pretty much fell in love with me. They have 2 daughters of their own, but both are married and moved away….they missed them a lot and I think I was the next best thing. I thought that they were gonna kidnap me at one point lol. They pleaded for me to come back again, and welcomed me to stay with them anytime. Im not gonna lie, it made me a bit homesick for my parents, but it was nice to have a family for a night.
The next day we went to a coffee plantation where we saw coffee plants, some exotic fruit trees, and some other really interesting vegetation. We then headed to some waterfalls which were beautiful and looked like they would have been a blast to swim in, but we were told that there were a lot of dangerous whirlpools in which people died, so swimming was obviously off limits. After we went to an elephant reservation which was def. not my favorite part at all. There were training grounds for the elephants and we basically witnessed the torture of those poor creatures. They were whipping, stabbing, and hitting the elephants with tree branches as the elephants literally cried out in pain. It def. opened up my eyes to the cruelty to animals. After the elephant reservation we headed to the Golden Temple which was my favorite part of Coorg—it was a Buddhist temple that was gorgeous! It was ordinately decorated in gold and deep reds and blues, with very asian looking architecture and art. After witnessing a Buddhist prayer session (which was extremely interesting, it was just a bunch of bald guys wearing red and gold robes chanting) we left for Mysore. Once in Mysore we went to a botanical garden and when it got dark we watched a water fountain show in which lights, a waterfoutains danced with some Hindi music. It kind of reminded me of the Stone Mountain laser show in Atlanta GA. We finally reached Bangalore around 11:30 and I was EXHASUTED! I feel fast asleep still trying to process everything I’d seen throughout the entire weekend.
Let me just say I LOVED the homestay. It was a very liberal muslim family that pretty much fell in love with me. They have 2 daughters of their own, but both are married and moved away….they missed them a lot and I think I was the next best thing. I thought that they were gonna kidnap me at one point lol. They pleaded for me to come back again, and welcomed me to stay with them anytime. Im not gonna lie, it made me a bit homesick for my parents, but it was nice to have a family for a night.
The next day we went to a coffee plantation where we saw coffee plants, some exotic fruit trees, and some other really interesting vegetation. We then headed to some waterfalls which were beautiful and looked like they would have been a blast to swim in, but we were told that there were a lot of dangerous whirlpools in which people died, so swimming was obviously off limits. After we went to an elephant reservation which was def. not my favorite part at all. There were training grounds for the elephants and we basically witnessed the torture of those poor creatures. They were whipping, stabbing, and hitting the elephants with tree branches as the elephants literally cried out in pain. It def. opened up my eyes to the cruelty to animals. After the elephant reservation we headed to the Golden Temple which was my favorite part of Coorg—it was a Buddhist temple that was gorgeous! It was ordinately decorated in gold and deep reds and blues, with very asian looking architecture and art. After witnessing a Buddhist prayer session (which was extremely interesting, it was just a bunch of bald guys wearing red and gold robes chanting) we left for Mysore. Once in Mysore we went to a botanical garden and when it got dark we watched a water fountain show in which lights, a waterfoutains danced with some Hindi music. It kind of reminded me of the Stone Mountain laser show in Atlanta GA. We finally reached Bangalore around 11:30 and I was EXHASUTED! I feel fast asleep still trying to process everything I’d seen throughout the entire weekend.
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