My Mysore Travel Guide-Visiting the Places to See in Mysore City for a Week
After checking out of a tiny room in a peculiar highway hotel outside Mysore (also known as Mysuru), my partner, Sagar, and I took deep breaths.
“I’m so relaxed after getting out of that place. We shouldn’t have stayed there for three nights,” I said, thinking about how the sleepy hotel staff had looked at us in shock when we had returned to the hotel after lunch. Rubbing his eyes, the receptionist had asked, “You didn’t go sightseeing?” without even unlocking the main gate which he had locked from inside. Sagar and I had waited on two tiny iron chairs in the airless lobby while the housekeeping woman haphazardly cleaned our room, leaving the garbage as is, the bed unmade, and damp towels lying in a coil. Then I squeezed onto the tiny desk in the corner, and Sagar managed to work from the bed.
As if broken from a reverie, Sagar replied, “Yeah, like a weight is lifted off my head.”
When we drove to a highly-praised dosa eatery (and on top of the list of places to visit in Mysore) in downtown, the hotel room was already a thing of the past. Watching the Mysuru city go by us, we discussed our options. Either we could look for a good hotel in the city centre near the important historical places, Mysore being the the capital of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1399 to 1947, or drive further on. Our eyes were on Kerala.
I had traveled from Bangalore to Mysore with my parents thirteen years ago and visited the main places to see in Mysore city: the Mysore Palace, the city zoo, Vrindavan Gardens et cetera. Sagar also didn’t care much about exploring every nook and corner of Mysuru. We had been to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary (Karnataka) twice. Just a day earlier, we had strolled around an unmarked dam and lake near Mysore, spotting hundreds of migratory birds (We visited that lake from the highway hotel. Though it’s not on any list of places to visit near Mysore, it should be. Hint: Look for blue stretches around Mysuru and explore slowly.)
“Let’s see how we feel after breakfast,” we said to each other.
The masala dosa was a bit limp, not like the super crispy Karnataka dosa I was expecting. The place was, sadly, overhyped.
After tea, we sat under a tree on the dusty road, planning our day. Sagar had taken the day off, given how impromptu we were being.
“Do you want to drive to Bandipur or Nagarhole National Park today?” He asked, as we had been asking each other since morning.
“No. I’m so tired I don’t think I can drive today. It’s a long drive. And I don’t think even you’re up for driving for long hours.” I rubbed my eyes which had suddenly become heavy, as if wanting to close.
“No, I’m not.” He replied, his eyes tired.
“Let’s look for a hotel and stay.” After the dosa, my body had slowed down, screaming for rest and sleep. Imagining myself lying down on a bed was bringing immense relief.
We both started browsing Google Maps for good places to stay in Mysore. He was looking at hotel websites.
Finding guest homes and family stays in India for three years, we are both wary of accommodations. Some hosts don’t clean, many don’t provide drinking water, others are noisy or intruding, and so on. Somewhere staff doesn’t care, other places don’t have parking, and sometimes the toilet doesn’t flush. I can filter out well-reviewed properties only by a few red flags that I know would be unbearable in reality.
I found Mannar, a hotel with a 4-star rating (after hundreds of reviews). None of its reviews said dirty, uncaring staff, noise et cetera. One or two poor reviews where the experience might have been spoiled due to a one-off reason didn’t worry me. Parking was mentioned.
We didn’t call. Fifteen minutes later, we squeezed into a narrow, busy street and parked outside the Mannar hotel across from a dung-smeared cow munching grass from a round stone trough.
