Guided Tour

Mysore is known as the city of palaces. It was the seat of power during the age of the Maharaja. The centerpiece in town is a magnificant palace which was recently reconsturcted after the old one burned down in the late 1800's. The new one is made from metal and stone, unlike it's older now toasted, wooden predocessor.

Now, usually before touring sites I try to do my homework and figure out what it is I'm looking at. Usually I use my guide books and some internet resources to help out that way I don't have to hire a guide or buy one of the cheesy books that guys are always selling (really pushing actually) out front. But this time I decided to hire a guide; I mean why not....

Maybe it was becuase I negotiated a cheaper rate on my tour...perhaps I just got stuck with a bad guide...maybe I just caught him at a moment when he was off his game, but this guide sucked!

The only adjective he knew in English was "beautiful." And thats how he started--Standing outside the palace he sweeps his hand in front of him and proceeds, "This is the beautiful maharaja's palace. The older, beautiful, wooden palace burned down, so he rebuilt this beautiful palace out of metal and stone." blah blah blah.

So we head into the first hall. "This is the beautiful car hall. This is where the Maharaja would drive his cars in, this way...On your left you can see the beautiful carvings of the statues he would give Puja to." "And these are the beautiful carved Rosewood doors." "And this beautiful...." I was ready to scream after 10 minutes!!! Okay, I said to myself--he doesn't speak very good English, thats okay...after all my Hindi isn't too good. The palace was very crowded, as most stuff usually is, and people tended to gravitate towards our 'tour' he was giving, if you could call it that. And before I knew it I was pushed out to the outskirts of a crowd numbering about 30 people as he explains, "And this is the beautiful painting of the Maharaja's elephant and the Mysore state horse." I started to laugh because under the painting is a sign that reads, "Maharaja's elephand with Mysore State horse" He obviously missed the humor in the situation. And he pushes me onto the next painting--this one read, "Maharaja's standard and personal body guards" Pandering to the crowd following us he says, louder now because of all the people, "This is the beautiful painting of the Maharaja's standard and his personal bodyguard." Okay, this isn't funny anymore; it's quickly turning into a very annoying, crowded &smelly, waste of money.

-- time for some quick background-- the murals that he was showing me was from the anual Dasara procession. It dates back to when there was a Maharaja (king/ruler) before there was a united India. He would head a huge 10 day festival with parades that celebrated Mysore, it's kings, its people and its Gods. So the murals I was looking at were from a specific Dasara festival, although I never learned what year. --

I got frustrated because he didn't seem to know anything other that what was posted in front of him. As I just mentioned, the murals were painted in celebration of a specific Dasara & the artist made each figure individualised. Underneath the captions was a list of the names that corresponded to the people in each mural panel. I started asking about who the people were & his answer, simple enough, was "they are the people in the Dasara." I pressed on trying to figure out WHO they were. I mean, I can see that this is Lt. Major 'Hollander' or whomever...but I wanted to know why they were important and he couldn't tell me so I finally had enough. I gave him Rs 70 half of what we agreed on, and told him to go away so I could enjoy the rest of the tour in peace.