Admire the maharaja's palace, climb the Chamundi Hill, go Sandalwood shopping or study yoga: a holiday in South India is not complete without a visit to Mysore.
When traveling through south India, make sure you stop in Mysore. This south Indian city is famous for its Sandalwood oil, and most visitors come to see its beautiful palace, but recently it has also become South India's centre for yoga studies. Mysore is a small city by Indian standards and easy to get around, although modernization is trickling in from nearby IT centre Bangalore.
Studying Yoga
Several Indian magazines are now calling Mysore India's new Yoga Capital (Rishikesh being the old one). Thousands of Westerners fly to Mysore every year to study yoga. Some schools accept drop-in visitors but some require a long commitment, and most students stay here for months.
Mysore Palace
Until Indian independence Mysore was ruled by the Wodeyar family of maharajas, based in the Mysore Palace. The Indo-Saracenic palace is worth seeing both in daytime and on Sunday nights, when 97 000 light bulbs are lit simultaneously at 7pm. During the day one can spend hours wandering around the palace and admiring its mosaic floors, beautifully decorated ceilings, intricate wood carvings and a throne made of solid gold.
Chamundeswari Temple
Chamundi Hill overlooks the city and on top of it stands a temple for the goddess Chamundeswari, whose victory over the demon Mahishasura is celebrated in Mysore every October with the 10-day Dasara festival. Pilgrims are expected to climb the 1000 steps leading up to the temple, for others there are buses and autorickshaws. The temple is small, but busy, and is surrounded by the usual circus of flower sellers, souvenir sellers, postcard sellers and beggars. Half way up the hill is an impressive statue of Shiva's bull, Nandi.
The Lalitha Mahal Palace nearby has been converted into a luxurious hotel with 5-star dining and an outdoor swimming pool, available for non-guests for a fee.
Sandalwood Shopping
Devaraja Market in the centre of Mysore is a derelict, colourful and noisy market area full of exotic fruit, vegetables, flowers, handmade incense sticks and "Sandalwood perfume". Truly genuine oil, however, should be bought from the Sandalwood factory or from the government's Cauvery Emporium on Sayyaji Rao Road, the main shopping street. Mysore is also famous for its silk, and silk weaving can be observed in the Government Silk Factory.
Eating Out
When tired from shopping, head to the award-winning Green Hotel for a delicious South Indian lunch in its beautiful gardens. Western-style coffee shops and pizza restaurants have appeared in the city in recent years, but while in Mysore, try also the local sweet, Mysore Pak, made of clarified butter, milk and sugar.
