Day 165 - Inverse Proportions

We futsed and puttered away a good bit of the morning deciding what to do. We finally settled on taking the bus to Mysore, a nice city in theory only 2.5-3 hours from Bangalore. With traffic it was nearly 4 hours. When we arrived, we discovered that the main attraction, the City Palace, was closed to set up for a festival. As M says, "It's like the Fourth of July every friggin' day here!" Undaunted, we made our way to St Philomena Cathedral, which was lovely, though not "full of birdsong" as the guidebook promised. I guess people got tired of bird poop in the pews and put nets across the doors.

We did find the small sign and arrow indicating the way to the crypts which were satifactorily dim and eerie, complete with a polychrome Jesus lying in one hallway and St Philomena watching over a blue-painted well into which donations could be flipped with a certain degree of irreverency. Interesting, very few names in the crypt were Indian. I guess when the church was still taking bodies it was strictly Anglican territory.

On the way out of the church we passed a fruit vendor, and treated ourselves to the sweetest pineapple ever. We couldn't finish it, much to the delight of the cows who got the leftovers.

By then it was nearly 5, so we moseyed our way back to the bus stand. Where it took another 4 hours to get home.

So. 8 hours of bus. 2 hours of touring. Still worth it.