#TM2021 First Weekend Trip to Mysore after COVID!

Before I start jumping on to the details of the trip, let me give you some context of this. My Wife and I are staying in Bangalore from March,2019. Before that, we have stayed in Mysore for around 5 years! It has become like our second home. If you are yet to visit this beautiful place, I would say , start planning right away!

Because of the pandemic, its been long that we went out. So, we planned for this short weekend trip seeing the overlapping of the long weekend (wow, that was not intentional at all!) According to me, the best mode of transport to visit Mysore from Bangalore is Train. We had booked tickets in MAS-MYS (Chennai-Mysore) Shatabdi Express. The ticket fair is quite high but the timing of the train suits us. The train is scheduled to depart from KSR Bengaluru station at 10.50AM. We reached the station quite early and waited for the train to arrive.

Now, I want to mention a few things about the train here. It comes from Chennai and you should expect a huge crowd getting down in the Bangalore station. Once you get on the train, like any other Shatabdi Express, you would expect at least a bottle of water to be provided to you. But, unfortunately, this time they did not provide. So, pro tip, get your own water! The journey was quite uneventful. You would find the outside view quite pleasant especially when it crosses the Ramnagara station as you can see those beautiful hills (Gabbar's hideout in Sholay movie).

We had booked the hotel via MakeMyTrip prior to the trip itself. We did some research and wanted some hotel below 1500/day budget. Hotel Preethi International seemed like a good match. There was some card offers in MMT and that also added to the overall discount. The hotel is just 100 meters away from the Sub-urban Bus Stand in Mysore. Location-wise I would say its very convenient for tourists. Also, its just on the main road and that means transportation is never an issue.

Coming to the rooms and services, overall, I was happy with the rooms (for that price) but the service could have been better. I will attach a few photos here.

We freshened up quickly and headed out for lunch. We had planned to go to the Pearl Restaurant (Big Chicken) in V.V.Mohalla. This is a must visit every time we come to Mysore. The best thing about this restaurant is the quick service and also the reasonable price for all its items. If anyone is coming for the first time, they should try the Chicken Tikka Biryani, any of the Sizzlers and of course the Cold Coffee. The staff behavior is so nice! We made a friend there long back. He is still there. He is one of the managers named Suraj. If you are reading this and planning to visit, please do reach out to him and tell that you know me!

This restaurant is famous for its Gujarati/Rajasthani Thali. When I used to stay in Mysore, I had visited this place once with my friends and I just loved the food! I am not a person who can do justice to a Thali ( as I eat very little ), but I could manage to finish this one! That speaks a lot about the food. However, this time I was disappointed. They have kept the same items for the thali but the taste is simply not that great anymore. It costs INR 225/- per thali. I had taken a bowl of Daal-Khichdi (INR 150/-) and that too I felt was not a match for its price. We finished dinner and came back to the hotel (again, took a walk).

We did not have anything planned for the next day. We woke up a bit late and had breakfast in our room itself. Here is something you should know about, we did not include breakfast in our booking because as per our previous experiences, there are very few hotels in Mysore where you will get a good breakfast in buffet. We had done a bit of research and found out that the breakfast items were the usual ones like Idly, Dosa, Bread Toast, Omelet etc. which you will get in much cheaper price outside. Anyway, coming back to our plan. After breakfast , we headed towards Mysore Zoo.

One of the most fascinating things about Mysore is , its Zoological Garden (or as we all call it, Mysore Zoo). Its spread over around 157 Acre and it is one of the oldest zoos in India with a variety of around 168 different species. It's officially called as 'Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens'. As usual, people were pouring in in groups of big numbers. The ticket price is INR 100 per adult. You need to pay 100 bucks more if you are carrying your 'Still Camera' (which we thought so but got to know , there is no one actually checking!) So, I would suggest, you can get away with it. I am not going to bore you with the details of the zoo and you will find everything here.

We spent around 3 hours in the zoo. There is something I found which could have been better is the way they have marked the pathway. It can be really confusing to know where exactly you will find a particular animal if you are coming for the first time. I have been there a couple of times, but still we missed the Tiger enclose (oh, how I missed that!) Luckily the weather was pleasant enough for us to roam without getting tired. I will attach some of the images here-

Once were done with our zoo excursion (this word brings back so many childhood memories, but let's keep those aside for now), we decided to go to Mezzaluna Chinese for our lunch. Now, we could have gone to any nearby restaurant (Mezzaluna is quite far from the Zoo), but just like Big Chicken, this is another restaurant where we must visit when we are in Mysore. They have another branch which serves Indian and Continental foods but we prefer the Chinese one. You might find us boring but we have our fixed dishes to order there : Egg Chilly and Chicken Chinese Chop suey. If you are coming here for the first time, I would suggest you these two along with a Sweet and Salt Lime Soda. You won't be disappointed, I promise!

I have visited many hill stations and many hill-roads for that matter, but the feeling that I get here on the towards the Chamundi Devi temple (which is at the top of the Chamundi Hills and hence the name), its something quite different. During my stay in Mysore, I have visited this place numerous times, but I feel just like the very first day every time I am taking this road! The best way to visit the Chamundi Devi temple is to take a bus from the City Bus Stand. We took an auto from our hotel to CBS and then took bus number 301 towards Chamundi Hills. There are mainly 2 types of buses , one ordinary and the other one volvo (AC bus), that run in this route. The ordinary bus fare till Chamundi Hills is INR 20 per person and the Volvo one costs around 25-30 bucks. I would suggest to take the ordinary one as you may feel a little nauseous in the volvo one when it starts to go uphill and take those hairpin bends!

The 20 minutes journey on the way towards the Chamundi Devi temple at the top is something to be experienced when you are in Mysore. You will get a beautiful aerial view of the city. They have built a view point as well from where you can see the city up close using a telescope. Usually that place will be too much crowded. The best time to visit would be the Sunset as you will get breathtaking views of the sunset from the Chamundi Hills top. There is a small bus stand where the bus will stop and you need to cover the remaining distance to the temple by walk. The weather was chilling after the fresh rains. We roamed around for some time and got into the return-bus towards CBS. The frequency of the buses is usually 30-45 minutes.

Once we got down from the bus at CBS, it was already dark. There was nothing else on our plate so we headed towards the famous Devaraja URS road just 100 mtrs away from the bus stand. A Mysore trip is incomplete without paying a visit to this place. It was a Saturday and the street was bustling with people, the shops were lit with joy! Its the recent downpour of tourists that made these shops operating in full swing again and I hope it stays this way. You can find showrooms of so many big brands like Manyavar, Van Huesen etc. here. It's like the Times Square of Mysore (yeah, maybe I did exaggerate a little, but you got the drift!) After taking a long walk along the pavements, we decided to return to the hotel.

We had our dinner in our hotel room itself and went to sleep.

We had our train from Mysore station at 11.30AM. So, we woke up a bit early , had our breakfast and got ready to say our goodbyes(for now) to this beautiful city of Mysore. We had booked our tickets in Tippu Express. This proved to be one of the best trains from Mysore to Bangalore in terms of duration and stops. It reached before the scheduled arrival time and entered Bangalore station around 1.45PM.

And with that, we completed our sweet and short weekend trip to my 2nd home, Mysore!