The Feinbaum Chronicles

Mysore Palace

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After getting about one hour of sleep, we were off to visit the city of Mysore. This day was strictly a cultural sightseeing day which allowed everyone to get adjusted to the time zone changes. We left the hotel for the 2 hour drive to Mysore and surrounding areas.  

A few things became blaringly obvious during the bus ride. First, India has an enormous amount of people and they are everywhere. A crowded NYC street has nothing on Bangalore. It doesn’t even come close in comparison.  

Second, many folks are living well below the poverty levels. People were living in makeshift houses that were nothing more than a tarp and some brush. These “houses” and it’s a stretch to call them that were probably the size of an average American bathroom. It’s quite disturbing and emotional seeing people living in these sorts of conditions. I saw people bathing in the local rivers, washing clothes on the rocky shores and using the bathroom outdoors and in the open. These are not homeless people but folks that live in houses with no indoor plumbing or outhouses. Even outside of the tarp living, the housing here are very small and nothing like you’ve probably seen before. I would say that the average house is about 300-400 square feet. I should point out that the city of Bangalore is a bit less impoverished that the road to Mysore but still many folks are living well below poverty levels. 

The other interesting observation is that animals are everywhere. Many folks have cows or ox grazing in front of their houses. As a matter of fact, you see cows, horses, ox and a lot of stray dogs just roaming the streets. Several times today we had to stop the bus to let a stray ox roam across the street. It’s also sad to see many of these animals well below their ideal weight.  It’s somewhat overwhelming to the senses.

Make sure you check out my pictures above. If you click on the photo, it will take you over to Flickr for more trip photos.

Well, I arrived safely in Bangalore. To say the trip was long would be an understatement. My flight out of Atlanta was delayed about an hour which caused me to almost miss my connection in Paris. I arrived at my gate about a minute or so before they were going to close boarding. Fortunately, Paris had some fog earlier in the morning and all flights were delayed. If it wasn’t for the fog delays, I would have missed my flight for sure.

After a 9 1/2 hour flight from Paris to Bangalore, I was greeted by my name on list at the customs counter. It became quickly apparent that even though I made the connecting flight in Paris, my luggage did not. I did pack a one days worth of clothes in my carry-on, which I am currently wearing. I hope that my bags will arrive on the midnight flight this evening.

We arrived into Bangalore Airport at 1:30 AM Bangalore time Sunday. The total flight time with layovers was about 25 hours. We made it to the hotel around 3:00 AM and were told that we had to be downstairs by 6:30 AM to head out for a cultural visit. The goal here was to get us adjusted to the local time zone. I ended up falling asleep around 5:30 AM, so I got an hour of sleep.

A quick breakfast and we were off to the city of Mysore for our first cultural visit.