The houseboat was a nice contrast to the busyness that seems to go on everywhere else, but these good things must come to an end, right?
After we made our way back to our starting point, we said goodbye to the staff of the houseboat, and said hello to our driver who would be taking us on a slow, bumpy road to Mysore.
The drive started off nicely, speeding along a nicely paved national highway for most of the driving in Kerala, but once we started heading back east and towards the mountains, the roads became bumpy and full of hair-pin turns that made our speed drop dramatically.
Our driver was a really good sport though, and he kept forging ahead, even as it got to be very late in the evening.
That said, the drive itself had its highlights. Virtually upon saying “We’re entering the forest. Maybe we’ll see monkeys!” a whole family of monkeys was seen just lounging in the middle of the road. Amy and I started counting the seconds to when Henny would start her complaints: “I don’t like monkeys. I don’t trust them. They steal things.”
These random stops weren’t frequent enough, although I suppose it would have added a lot of time onto our already long journeys. This one was worth it though….
But even better than the monkeys has to be the elephants. On the way to Mysore, we stopped at an elephant park where there are literally dozens of elephants. It seems like many of them are being trained to do the elephant blessings that you see at the temples. Our driver, although he lives relatively near, had never been, so he was thrilled to accompany us on this unplanned diversion.
This was not the only elephant sighting. We got lucky and got to see one of the superbly decorated elephants with their silly head-dress in what appeared to be a totally random religious procession on the side of the road. Lots of drums banging, people blowing their strange reed-instruments, and a lone decorated elephant. “Nai. Would you look at that? There’s an elephant in the road!”
We got into Mysore much later than anticipated, and annoyingly, our hotel had given up our rooms—that despite us having confirmed twice during the day…. Thankfully, they had rooms available at one of their other sister hotels—actually, the hotel that we had wanted to stay at initially—so in the end it worked out ok.
The Grumpy Writer’s Grumps
Tues. Jan 16 – Floating Some More & Driving to Mysore
The houseboat was a nice contrast to the busyness that seems to go on everywhere else, but these good things must come to an end, right?
After we made our way back to our starting point, we said goodbye to the staff of the houseboat, and said hello to our driver who would be taking us on a slow, bumpy road to Mysore.
The drive started off nicely, speeding along a nicely paved national highway for most of the driving in Kerala, but once we started heading back east and towards the mountains, the roads became bumpy and full of hair-pin turns that made our speed drop dramatically.
Our driver was a really good sport though, and he kept forging ahead, even as it got to be very late in the evening.
That said, the drive itself had its highlights. Virtually upon saying “We’re entering the forest. Maybe we’ll see monkeys!” a whole family of monkeys was seen just lounging in the middle of the road. Amy and I started counting the seconds to when Henny would start her complaints: “I don’t like monkeys. I don’t trust them. They steal things.”
These random stops weren’t frequent enough, although I suppose it would have added a lot of time onto our already long journeys. This one was worth it though….
But even better than the monkeys has to be the elephants. On the way to Mysore, we stopped at an elephant park where there are literally dozens of elephants. It seems like many of them are being trained to do the elephant blessings that you see at the temples. Our driver, although he lives relatively near, had never been, so he was thrilled to accompany us on this unplanned diversion.
This was not the only elephant sighting. We got lucky and got to see one of the superbly decorated elephants with their silly head-dress in what appeared to be a totally random religious procession on the side of the road. Lots of drums banging, people blowing their strange reed-instruments, and a lone decorated elephant. “Nai. Would you look at that? There’s an elephant in the road!”
We got into Mysore much later than anticipated, and annoyingly, our hotel had given up our rooms—that despite us having confirmed twice during the day…. Thankfully, they had rooms available at one of their other sister hotels—actually, the hotel that we had wanted to stay at initially—so in the end it worked out ok.
Of course, I took lots of photos of the elephant park….
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