Mysore Temple, Palace Tour, and Elephant Ride

After our little self guided tour of the Lilitha Mahal palace, we decided to go and take a tour of the Mysore Palace and grounds.  We had been to see the light show the night before, but really wanted to see the inside as well.  I was so glad we did, because it was INCREDIBLE!  Unfortunately, they don’t let you take pictures of the INSIDE of the Palace, but thanks to google search I was able to find a few so that I can remember.  None of the inside pictures are pictures I took though and all credit goes to the individual photographers of each shot.  

We were also able to explore some of the temples (that are on the palace grounds) and then after our tour of the palace Adam hooked me up with an Elephant ride.  This was one of my top bucket list items for India so I was SUPER excited!  How cool to be able to actually ride on an elephant?  It was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity (or maybe twice if we take the kids to Mysore this summer!?) I sure loved it though and it truly was an amazing experience to be able to do that!  The best part?  It only cost maybe $1.50.  SUPER Cheap, and super fun!  We made sure to tip our “elephant driver” well. 🙂  

On the way to Mysore, I had to snap this picture.  This is VERY typical in India.  I’m not sure if these men know each other or if trucks with room just allow people to ride, but you see this often in India.  No strict seat belt rules there! 

Adam wanted to try out some fresh squeezed lemonade.  It doesn’t get much fresher than being squeezed right in front of your eyes!  He loved it. 🙂

I didn’t know I was a shoe person until getting to India but man alive do they have a great variety of flip flops for ladies and for CHEAP! ($2-3)  MY problem?  My feet are way too big and most places didn’t carry my size which is funny because I’m only an 8.5 in American sizes.  

There is never a shortage of fresh fruits and vegetables in India and it is AWESOME! 

Our first stop once we got into the palace grounds was to the palace temple.  His Royal Highness didn’t want to be bothered going to the local temple, so he just built one for himself to worship in.  Naveen our driver joined us for our palace touring which was really fun!  He truly became like part of our family by the end of our trip. 🙂

Then after touring the temple we decided to go tour the palace.  They don’t let you wear shoes or take pictures so you had to check your camera’s and shoes at the door.  

Here are some inside shots of the palace. Again these are NOT my pictures and are ones that others have posted on the internet.  

I could’t believe how ornate the inside was.  Seriously amazing!  I also LOVED the trees around the palace.  If there is one thing I love about India its the beautiful vegetation you see growing everywhere.  I saw some of the prettiest trees and flowers of my life while visiting.  They literally took my breath away. 🙂

The highlight of the day though for me was without question the Elephant Ride!  This has always been on my bucket list of things to do and it really was so awesome.  I don’t know why but I just have a thing about animals and love close encounters with them (tame ones mostly).  It was so incredible to not only be able to touch and interact with this beautiful animal, but also get to get on it and ride it.  The driver even let me ride on the front at one point behind the ears.  Simple Incredible.  For sure one of the high lights of the entire trip! I loved every minute of it!  

I lucked out and got to ride with an Indian family who was visiting from another city nearby.  The young girl on the far left was really smitten with me and loved asking me lots of questions (her English was really good).  Afterwards she and her entire family all asked to take pictures with me, so I got to take turns getting in pictures with lots of different people.  That started a chain reaction of others wanting pictures too, so I got to spend a few minutes doing that.  Apparently Adam wasn’t nearly as cool because no one asked to take his picture! Ha!  It was really fun though and great to make some more Indian friends!  

Hard to tell in this picture, but the Elephant had his trunk on my head! 🙂 

After we were done at the palace we started to head back to the car but were pretty much cornered by local vendors to buy Indian trinkets.  Our driver just told us to ignore the vendors (they were actually following us and did so all the way to our car), but I found that I could really relax the atmosphere by simply changing the situation and being the one to GIVE them something.  So everywhere we went I carried chocolates in our bag and anytime someone got aggressive (or I really wasn’t interested) or it was a cute kid selling something that I didn’t want to buy it,  I would simply take out a chocolate and give it to that person.  It was actually AMAZING to see the change come over each person and the smile and happiness that a small act like that gave them.  I would say something like “no thank you, but please accept this gift of an American chocolate.” It really ended up being a very effective way to ease aggressive people and bring smiles to peoples faces.  I loved it and I think the people I encountered did too!  

I even got a few “free things” given to me by people that wanted to return the kindness.  For example, one teenage boy I gave a chocolate too gave me a free elephant key chain telling me he wanted me to keep it to remember him by.  So cute!  We also used this approach for beggars on the street.  We would just give them a handful of chocolates, a bottle of water, or some fruit we had brought in our bag.  We loved helping people in small and simple ways though and making them feel like they were noticed and cared about.  It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for both Adam and I.  Naveen, our driver kept saying, “The people are very happy with you. It makes them happy to get such a treat!”  

By the time were were done touring the palace we were famished and so Naveen suggested a hotel with an international restaurant in it for lunch (he knows I like to branch out from Indian food at least a few times a day).  So off we went.  Although the food was really good it was very expensive (for India) and ended up being very different from what we THOUGHT we had ordered.  We had ordered a spaghetti with marinara sauce and then what we thought was a BBQ chicken sandwich.  See below for what came out. 🙂  

Here is Adam’s “spaghetti.” Only it was in an orange sauce instead of a red sauce.  It was super yummy though and had a completely different flavor from what we are used to!  

And here is our BBQ chicken sandwich.  First of all there is no bread in site.  2nd of all the BBQ sauce is orange and thick.  It did come with fries though and was actually really good!  

And just for fun, a picture of the sun behind the clouds that afternoon.  So pretty!  

Can you see why we love India so much?