Deterministic Musings

Very good buffet breakfast, at a highway stop like restaurant.  They had many huts and we occupied one of them.  Rice Idly, vada, etc… and good watermelon juice.

Then we went to Srirangapatnam, Tipu Sultan’s summer palace. The drawings on the wall were particularly interesting, and they used a cow (sacred) and a pig (filthy) to portray some guy who helped Tipu in the first battle against the Brits, but betrayed Tipu in the second battle.

Then our bus just roared through the old city and we didn’t get a chance to get off and see the sights of e.g. Tipu Sultan’s place of death.  He fought off the British army and then eventually defeated and killed in 1799, by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who also defeated Napolean.

The Maharaja’s Palace in Mysore, is not a very old historical site.  Burnt by fire, and rebuilt in 1897.  Nevertheless, it is worth seeing, being very extravagant, and merging the European building styles with Indian / Hindu elements.  Can’t take pictures inside, and we had to check in our cameras in a special camera cloakroom.  The marriage hall, with stained glasses on the ceiling featuring peacocks, is breathtaking.  The tour guide was trying to show us several portraits on the wall where some optical illusions were used.  e.g. the formation of the army during a festival / procession: viewing from the left it looked like it’s rectangular, then viewing from middle it’s semi-circular, then viewing from right it’s square.

Of course the tour guides were obliged to take us to a commission generating souvenir shop, where I dropped Rs 1000 for 2 silk ties and hoped my dad would like at least one of them.

Then we went to the Chamundi Hills, but only halfway, to the Nandi statue which was carved from one big rock.  5m tall, Nandi is a bull statue.  It is the carrier of Shiva, and therefore the messenger if you have prayers for Shiva.