Srirangapatnum

Barb Phipps a fellow ex-pat American currently working out of the TW Beijing office was in Bangalore this week -- so we spent the weekend seeing some of the local sites.

On Saturday, we hired a car & driver and drove to Mysore stopping at Srirangapatnam along the way. Left Bangalore at 7 am to beat the traffic -- which was especially bad this weekend because of Independence Day celebrations.

Srirangapatnam is about 14 kms from Mysore. Srirangapatnam was the capital of the Mysore State under Tippu Sultan. After the death of Tippu Sultan in 1799 the British shifted the capital back to Mysore.

We stopped at the following sites:

• The spot where Tippu Sultan was killed in a battle with the British
• Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple
• Tippu Sultan's Mausoleum (in photo above; it's his flag flying in the front)
• Dariya Daulat Bagh (Wealth of the Sea) - Tippu Sultan's summer palace, mostly made of teak, very beautiful

The Hindu temple was especially interesting. Outside the temple there were a lot of street vendors selling 'puja' (symbolic offerings for prayer -- usually flowers). It was an active temple and was packed with people. At all temples you are required to remove your shoes before entering and typically you pay some guy Rs. 5 to watch over your shoes (I've tried to just stick them in by backpack, but I get scolded at that for some reason). Inside the temple there were a bunch of statues of Hindu deities (murtis) -- at each murti there was a priest praying - from what I gather, you give the priest a donation or an offering and he blesses you and puts a marking on your forehead. I know my explanation is pretty lame -- I think I'm going to have to buy a book about what actually goes on inside a Hindu temple.