A must visit. Review on Mysore

I should talk about Mysore from various angles. Here I go...

1. A tourist attraction: The Mysore Maharaja Palace, The Lalit Mahal are two marvellous constructions. The Maharaja's palace is a masterpiece of architecture and art. Though the tourists are allowed to see only about 20 to 30% of the whole palace, that itself takes about 5 to 6 hours if you want to know about the palace in detail. Special functions are performed at the Palace during Navratris, apart from processions which are an age old ritual of the palace. A must visit to Mysore during these ten days of celebrations. Lalit Mahal is now a 5-star hotel, so to be frank, I had a look only from outside. Let me talk about other attractions too. The Chamundi Hills - a must see. Apart from visiting the temple atop the hill, you can have a bird's eye view of Mysore city. Then the Brindavan Gardens (it is called as KRS in Mysore, for Krishna Raja Sagar). It houses a dam on Cauvery river apart from being a good garden. But most of we Indians never learn to keep it serene and clean. You can find plastic, paper cups/bags to give KRS a negative point. Unless visitors have some discipline, KRS can't be maintained, taking into account the acres of land the gardens sprawl across. Then, the Mysore Dasara exhibition, if you happen to visit the city between the start of Dasara (Navratri) and Christmas.

Then, another visit worth paying is Srirangapatna. Yes, you got it if you have watched 'The Sword of Tipu Sultan' on Doordarshan. It is the place where Tipu fought agaist the British and died. There is a summer palace of Tipu Sultan in this place. Ofcourse, only the remains of it remain now. More importantly, on the banks of Cauvery, you could visit the Anantapadmanabha Swamy temple. There are two others exactly similar to this temple. One in Trivendrum in Kerala and the other, in Srirangam, Trichy district in Tamil Nadu. Surprisingly, in Srirangam too the temple is on the banks of Cauvery.

1. The ideal geographical location of Mysore. Close to Ooty on one side, close to Western Ghats towards Kerala (on the way to Kannur, Calicut, Wyanad districts)on the other side. The routes to both these places take you via Bandipur forests which also has a National Park. While you drive you could watch elephants, deers etc. Also, Mysore is close to Bangalore, Mangalore (to visit places like Udipi, called the temple town of Karnataka, Dharmasthala, Halebid, Gomateshwar) etc. All, within 300 Km. range. I just named a few. There are plenty of other places/tourist spots which are unheard of but pretty good places to enjoy.

   
   




2. A good place to live. With moderate temperature through out the year, has some industries (BEML, Vikrant Tyres, MSIL) also. Infosys, Wipro too set up their offices here. With a lower cost of living compared to Bangalore, Mysore provides peaceful life. There are no traffic jams, air pollution (these are special features of Bangalore today). No wonder, it is poised to become in near future one of the best cities to live in. Like Noida is to Gurgaon, down in South, Mysore is poised to be a competition to other industrialized cities like Coimbatore, Cochin, Visakhapatnam. It is certainly an alternative to the today's congested Bangalore. An excellent place to promote Information Technology industry too.