MYSORE Life In The Freezer

Waking at sunrise on the night bus, I was overjoyed to see a mob of t-shirt clad people in baseball caps and gloves, happily jogging along whilst picking up rubbish.

Turns out this is a new thing called a Ploggathon, a way of keeping Mysore city limits clean and tidy while keeping fit.

I read about it in the paper and was tickled they thought the runners had "braved the winter chill" to compete.

Although Mysore was cooler than the last few weeks, wintery it was not, but the heat was manageable and my head wasn't about to explode for a change.

We loved Mysore. Very clean, well laid out, plenty to do and see and just... pleasant.

Our first outing was a day to Srirangapatna with lobby-lurking Anantu and his wheezy tuktuk.

For those about to rock...

Checking out the 15th century fort first, and its Elephant Gate, primed us for the history around the 9th century Ranganathaswamy temple.

Of course, it was just our luck we arrived on an 'auspicious' day ie extra busy, so spent a fun  couple of hours in a queue which wound all the way through the temple, being stared at by schoolchildren and chatted to by the grown-ups.

Every now and then a chant would start up, by both kids and adults, and it felt curiously like going toward the turnstiles at the match - "Shiva!"/"Shearer!" - not dissimilar I guess.

Our trip was doubly interesting as I am currently reading about the East India Company and specifically the life and times of local king Tipu Sultan and his fate at British hands in 1799, right on this spot.

Sounds boring I know, but being here brought it to life.

We saw the dungeons where a previous unlucky loser, one-legged British Colonel Bailey and his men were imprisoned for many years; the spot where Tipu was killed when the British finally overcame him; his final resting place at the Muslim Gumbaz mausoleum and the Juma Masjid mosque.

Never been in a mosque before, bit different to Walthamstow's I would imagine.

Finally, Tipu's summer palace in the gardens of Daria Daulat Bagh (later purloined by Arthur Wellesley aka the Duke of Wellington).

It is a superb building, full of murals of Tipu's military exploits and Indian court life.

It's almost Art Nouveau decor on the walls, ceilings and galleries, and there is a very interesting small museum of etchings of the Brits causing bother and some portraits of Indian bigwigs.

What a great day, and definitely not too hot.

The creaky tuktuk made it back in one piece, and Anantu tried to collar us again for tomorrow. We'll see.

Tipu Sultan