Leaving Hassan after our great day in Shravanabelagola our next destination was Mysore, a city where we have been before (here is our last blog of Mysore). We had an Ok place to stay last time in Mysore but this time we wanted to be a bit closer to town. That is why we ended up in the famous MB International Hotel. It was indeed close to town, just a 10 minutes walk away from the Central bus stand.
We were welcomed very friendly - our room was small but looked clean and ok. We were relieved as we had booked 4 nights here. We went for a quick walk around town and a bite to eat for dinner. As we had planned a special trip for the next day, we went to bed early - well, we tried to! When we entered into our room and switched on the lights we saw some small bugs running around in the bed. The very first time on our trips: bedbugs!!!!! We quickly killed the 5 bugs we saw and went down to the reception. They immediately offered us a new room, were very friendly and even helped us to move our unpacked stuff. You can immagine - in the next room we carefully checked the matrasse and the sheets, but everything looked fine. We were just very lucky that we discovered the bedbugs before going to bed! The rest of the night was quiet and bugfree ;-).
The following day we got up early, had a quick breakfast and went down again to the bus stand to catch a bus to Srirangapattana which is about 16 km away from Mysore. You can get on all the Bangalore bound buses which depart like every 5 minutes. So that was easy. After 40 minutes we arrived in Srirangapattana. Our reason for visiting this historical fort town was not its bloody history but the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple. For the deity of Sri Ranganathna, a manifestation of Mahavishnu (it is the lying form of Narayana) there are only five sacred sites of worship in India. They are together called Pancharanga Kshetram. One of theses places is this temple.
We entered the historical part of town by foot through the fort walls. First we came across the beautiful Jamia Masjid, a cream-coloured mosque with 2 minarets. There, you can walk upstairs and enjoy a nice view over the area. Unfortunately the weather was quite cloudy. We kept walking and passed Tipu's place of death (the place where famous Tipu Sultan was found after he had died). It is a peaceful little garden. Close by were the old police headquarters and the Water Gate. We continued our walk to Colonel Bailey dungeon where
we sat down at the river observing the locals: kids were playing in the water, women doing some washing, some guys were cleaning themselves and others were washing dishes... From here it was a quick walk to the temple. We bought some offerings for the pooja and went in. Luckily, it was not very crowded. We had to wait in a queue for 20 minutes but without much hassle and much pushing. The temple is really beautiful with a huge statue of Sri Ranganathna. Actually the statue is a manifestation and not made by men! Really impressive! A swami made the pooja for us and we could feel a lot of power and energy this time. We even found some space to quietly sit down and meditate. It was really a wonderful experience. Inside, there was also a temple for Mahalakshmi, the goodess of inner and outer wealth and health. We could also do a pooja for her which was amazing. With many blessings and a really great experience we relaxed a little bit in the temple garden. We walked around the temple clockwise 1 time - this burns karma! And it is always good to loose some ;-)...... This was really the first temple, where we quietly could spend our time. Amazing!
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