Come Away With Me : Mysore Musings

Editor's Note : Our traveler fly is back with another trip down south. Pls let us know if you have any questions regarding the place or any suggestions or experience regarding your travel you want to share. Tell us all in the Comments section or mail us at housefliesanonymous@gmail.com.

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The much awaited long weekend had finally come and we were aching to go on a road trip, and since Dussehra was just round the corner we thought why not go to the hub of Dussehra celebrations- Mysore! 

So we started off from Bangalore at 7am (Mysore is only abut 3 hrs from Bangalore). Like I mentioned in my earlier travel post, I prefer eating home-packed food on trips, I had indeed packed some yummy juicy burgers for the road. We stopped at Mandya, which is also known as Sugar city, owing to the vast sugarcane fields and sugar processing plants there, and had our burgers whilst admiring the beautiful sugarcane fields and men and women at work. The view was perfect and weather was pleasant. After our halt we continued our journey and finally reached Mysore. My sincere advice would be to not rely too much on your GPS. To put things mildly, had we blindly followed what "she" said, I would not have been alive to write this post!!

Come Away With Me : Destination Coorg

Editor's Note : Pls welcome on board another member in the HFA family, who will take you along with her to Coorg. She chooses to remain, much like all of us here, anonymous. Tell us how you like what she has to say in the comments or you can mail us at housefliesanonymous@gmail.com.

So the husband and I finally got a whole weekend to ourselves (yes, I am one of the few unlucky ones, who work on weekends) and decided to have a small getaway somewhere nearby. Of the many options, we zeroed in on Coorg. Now Coorg (or Kodagu as it is traditionally known) is a beautiful hill station and is a major tourist spot near Bangalore. I haven’t been to many hill stations, except for Ooty a long time ago, so I vehemently nodded my head even before my husband can finish saying Coorg.

We had planned to leave home by around 5.30am so that we could reach early and have sufficient time to cover all the tourist spots. Who am I kidding? We left only by 6.30. Come on, I got a weekend free after like, ages – I am allowed to be lazy. I had also packed sandwiches to eat on the way. I know there are a million restaurants and McD’s on the way but come on, the joy of eating home-packed food while travelling is something else altogether (Yes, I am that kinda woman :P).

We set off towards our destination, thanks to our smart phones – NOT. The drive was great BECAUSE we had done some research before our trip, so knew the various shortcuts and all. I have a Coorgi friend and he had given me a detailed good-old route map to various hot-spots to check out in Coorg. 

Come Away With Me : The Swades Moment

So it happens (cue the Shehnai background score from the movie pls!!). You can run but you cannot hide. Your roots, they unearth you and take you back to where you belong. I am proud, I really am but growing up, Bihar was an albatross around my neck. You want to be known and identified by your roots but who wants to be stereotyped? So I threw attitude when I could, avoided answering when I could but abhorred using “Main” and “Haanji” from the very core of my being. We are Biharis and our “I” is Hum and our “We” is Hum. And really, when you can’t say “Aap lijiyega” sufficing with “Aap loge” then why add a respectful “Ji” to a basic “Haan”?

I don’t want to start a regional warfare zone here but I have a husband who takes “Being Bihari” as a cause in his life and enlightening others as his responsibility. I, obviously, have to be his star student and spread the awesomeness around. I was visiting my parents and one fine day we decided to make our stay worth its while, so we drove up to discover Nalanda.

You can read the history and the story above as I hardly remember the details of what the guide said. What struck me though was the sheer beauty of the place, the stories behind the walls and how the knowledge centre, probably the greatest in this world, was reduced to being a tourist spot?