Mysore is a much smaller city than Bangalore. It projects the same chaos and business but on a smaller scale. Being the former capital of the former kingdom of Mysore, it has quite a few highlights, among wich the royal palace of Mysore, wich is indeed way more magnificient than the one in Bangalore (and entrance is only 100 INR !). Other must-see’s include Shri Chamundeshwari, the “golden temple” on a hill in the south of the city (unless you are on a spiritual pilgrimage, i highly recommend taking a rikshaw up there and afterwards walk the long but scenic stairs down) and the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary in the north. Here you can see some impressiv large water birds close up, as well as crocodiles lurking in the water. Entrence is 500 INR and another 500 INR if you want to do the boat tour.
In the south of india you find also more remains of European colonialism, among which would be the St. Philomenas church in Mysore.
Booking a bus from Mysore to Kochi would be more challenging than the first one. It is more or less a 9 hour bus ride and I found two working options:
– if you go to the booth of the KSRTC busses in Mysore you can book a non AC seater bus for about 1000 INR which leaves around 9pm and arrives at 6 am the next day in Mysore.
– through the Ixigo app (the only app which works for me so far), you can book a bus with sleeper berths for abbout 1600 INR. This looks quite cozy and comfy, I had enough space to stretch myself out and but my hand luggage close to me (my main luggage was safely stored in the lower compartiment of the bus). The bumby roads in combination with the indian way of driving made it a very rough night though. Oh annd btw, this ride started already at 5pm, so we landed at 3 am in Mysore. Not an amazing time to be stranded somewhere – luckily even in the middle of the night, rikshaws were around to drop people thar arrive by these busses off at their places for the night.
Check out some impressions of Mysore in the slideshow below:
