After Bangalore we rocked off to Mysore where we saw a super cool palace (pretty sure Roxy covered that in the last blog), Neet! The next day we were catching a bus out to Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary but because we had a bit of time to kill, we booked an auto to take us to the government sandalwood factory and the government silk factory (both products that Mysore is famous for).
At the sandalwood factory we signed in and a guide led us around the factory floor and told us about the process. Because the sandalwood shipment didn't come in that day, the factory wasn't running, but it was still very cool to see the way they make the oil. The trees that they use to make the oil have to be at least 40 years old, and they prefer at least 80 and two people at the factory told us that they are running out. The oil sells for Rp1500 for 5ml. that works out to about 231 bucks an ounce. Plus, according to our travel guide, the price has more that doubled in the last two years. One of the cooler things about the our tour was that the manager stopped and talked to us for a bit, when he found out that I am a philosophy student, he started talking about his philosophy. As far as I could tell, he was a Buddhist, Empiricist, Evolutionist, Atheist, Environmentalist (hard to label him with western labels). One thing that Roxy pointed out was that back home, people don't talk about there philosophies with each other, especially not with strangers. You avoid politics and religion in polite company, but here, we've had a number of people just start telling us what they think about life, the universe, and everything; I rather like it.
We then moved on to the silk factory. We signed in and followed some arrows to the factory floor. We were expecting to be grabbed by someone to show us around like at the last factory, but instead we got a name tag and were allowed to simply wander. I have been to other factory tours (jelly belly and the like) and you walk on an enclosed catwalk above all the machines so that they don't accidentally rip your arms off and so you don't get in the workers way. Here, we walked right in between the spinning, clattering machines as random workers would flag us down and have us put our arms in the looms and weavers to feel the thread and cloth at different stages. The cloth was absolutely beautiful, pure silk with real gold threads woven in as trims and patterns. One worker told us a sari of that cloth costs about 5 grand. The whole thing was very cool, everyone we met was friendly, and the tours left us with good vibes all around.
After the tours we jumped a bus to Caliputa (I think). It's a small town near the wildlife park we were going to see. Although our time in Caliputa was mostly uneventful there were two things of interest that happened. The second was the wildlife park itself. We went there on our second day in the area and signed on for a jeep tour though the park. It was about an hour and a half long and we got to see a herd of elephants in the distance, a few wild boars, a shit-ton of spotted dear and a lone bull elephant (what they called a "lonely tusker") that was a little too close for comfort; we had to wait until his back was turned and zip past before he decided that we were looking at him wrong and stomped us into a fine red paste.
The first thing worth noting was when we first got in we were a bit hungry and skipped out of our hotel for a quick bite to eat. Not being picky, we stopped in at the first place we found. It seemed nice enough so we sat down and grabbed a menu. When we ordered the waiter seemed very confused and gave the impression that he had never heard of the things we were ordering; we had to point the stuff our on the menu and then he was like, "huh, all right I guess. Not sure what that is." When our food arrived it was super crappy; all of it was cold and most of it was not what we ordered. I had gotten the Fish Curry and when it came out it really stole the show. First, it was cold, but not "refrigerated" cold, more like "sitting on the counter for the last 14 hours" cold. The curry was lumpy and when I pulled out some fish I found that it was made by taking regular curry and tossing whole tiny fish in it; bones, scales, tail and all. We wound up eating the rice and flat bread and just leaving most of our food. I think it was the most spectacular failure at food I have ever seen.
Ok... Ran out of time here. TO BE CONTINUED.
Next time on Paradeshi:
Ooty, Kochi and more!
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