Mysore Palace Aglow

This weekend, I enjoyed a 2nd quick weekend trip to Mysore, out of which I will again write several blogs. In 2014, the dates between Sept 25th and Oct 4th in Mysore are when “Dasara” is in full swing. “It is called "Nadahabba", also referred to as "Navaratri" which means “Nine Nights”; it is a 10-day festival, where the city of Mysore is decorated with colorful lights. It turns an already beautiful city into quite the city of glamour! “The Dasara festivities have a very long and rich history of more than 400 years.” The root message behind the meaning of the festival is “good over evil”. During every other day of the year, Mysore Palace is lit at night during ONLY one night of every week, on Sunday nights from 7 to 7:45. During this 9 night festival, it is lit up every single night from 7-10, so a great time to go! Know that while Mysore is alive during any given night of the week as a standard, the city truly comes alive during this festival, and…….progressively even MORE ALIVE the closer you move towards the last Saturday of the festival. Visiting the first weekend gave us the chance to experience the beauty of the palace and street lights (hundreds of thousands, in every color imaginable, hung across streets, off lamplights and hanging from trees), without the “full force crowd” that is expected this coming weekend in October. The crowds, while large, were not that bad, and gave the chance to enjoy the night on a more peaceful level. A quick note...that after you live in Bangalore (population ~12 Million in this city alone) for several months, “large crowds” versus “small crowds” becomes rather relative. When you feel crowd bumps or elbowing only twice in a night versus 10, it is a low crowd night. Haha

We took a bus to the top of Chamundi Hill, a mountain-type experience which provides excellent views of the city below, around 4PM, to be able to spend some time up there, viewing the beauty of the Chamundeshwari temple and seeing all of the activities associated with this. The curves that head to the top of this mountain are again, like mountain roads in NC (tight curves, blind corners). Being on a bus, I thought it would be slow-going, but alas, I had a fast bus driver, and we actually passed another BUS. I think I must have an attraction that draws me towards the fastest drivers in India, as I seem to constantly find myself in “the passing lane”. Was a fun ride up. On the way down, we stopped at the overlook, as sunset was about to occur, to be able to see the beauty as the hundreds of thousands of lights began to come into view. Lights began to twinkle one at at time, and it was indeed beautiful.

We arrived at the Palace literally seconds before it was lit, and this has ranked as the most beautiful experience to date while in India. More than 100K bulbs light up the entire palace, which will truly take your breath away when they “pop on”. I am posting some pictures that I took, above and below. On Saturday night, there was a stage built out front, with musical and cultural plays and performances, and we were able to sit on the lawn and enjoy the vibrant sounds and music. That is the main reason my pictures are focused on the top part of the palace, as the bottom stories have this stage and electrical equipment in each one without fail. Mysore Palace lit at night is an India experience that you simply do not want to miss if you travel here.