An Elephant and Mysore!

After tea in the morning in Ooty, we all got into the car and drove down the mountain towards Mysore, which is in in the state of Karnataka, north west of Tamil Nadu. The drive down was steep and windy, and we passed several small villages and even a few small waterfalls! We also drove through a tiger reserve so all of us were watching out the windows for any sign of wildlife! We ended up seeing a herd of spotted deer cross the road in front of us, and as we neared a small village we came upon a elephant look out spot. We stopped on the side of the road and walked up to the gate, but were told that we needed a ticket to get in...we turned back, a little dissapointed to see a small crowd of people gathering at the opposite side of the street. I looked to see what they were all watching- from among the bushes, a GIANT black head was slowly emerging! As we walked across the street, a male elephant with big white tusks emerged completely from the green, following the direction of a trainer that was standing among all of us! At this point I was SOOO excited and angry at myself for not charging my camera fully, but luckily for me, Mahesh's sister had a camera and she let me take LOTS of photos! We all posed and took some photos by the elephant, moving along the road with it for a little while until we had taken enough photos and turned back to the car.
When we reached Mysore, we all went to another puja at my host father's office, and spent the morning and early afternoon there while he mingled and did business over a lunch of biriyani and curd rice. When he finished, we all got into the cars and drove up into the Chamundi hills to visit the Chamundeswari Temple at the top. We drove along the outskirts of the city to avoid traffic from a festival called Dasara that was going on at the time, then up through the mountain roads until we reached the top where there was not only the temple, but also a whole bunch of shops and LOTS of people! We walked around for a while, filling my empty water bottle with coconut water and taking photos of all of the monkeys playing around on the temple walls. We went inside the temple, a REALLY old temple that had pillars of solid silver with carvings of the Gods and watched a puja and were blessed with the sacred ash from the fire before squeezing out through the crowds and coming back out to the small square. We walked through the small shops and looked around for little things before walking back to the car and driving back down into the city to a place called Brindavan Garden, which was a HUGE and very well kept garden beneath a dam in the city. We walked around the gardens, admiring the green grass, flowers, and big fountains and waterways that ran alongside the walking path. After reaching the top of the stairs at the back, we took some photos of the entire park and then walked down through brightly colored flower bushes and all sat down on a small piece of grass where we shared a few guava fruits with chili powder sprinkled on the inside. We then took a small motor boat across the dam to the other side where there was another garden and some cement stands where we sat and watched a water show. There was a square fountain in the middle, and as it played songs from top Hindi movies, the water would shoot up and colored lights flashed on and off. When the show finished, it was dark outside and we all took the boat back across the water to our car and drove further into the city. We drove through dark streets, totally lit up with colored lights like we use at Christmas that were strung up on buildings and over our heads. We then saw a big white pillar illuminated ahead- it was a palace! We drove among hundreds of cars, buses and scootis around the palace and took photos as we passes by of the beautiful lit up architecture. I'll post a photo of this when I get them from my host mother's sister...