Big Buildings

This is the ISKON temple.

ISKON is an international Krishna church with temples worldwide. Picture a Hindu version of an American Mega Church and you're on the right track.

The first thing is, they don't allow photography inside. That's a shame, because the view from the plateau of the surrounding areas was great and a lot of what was inside was pretty photogenic.

Most of it didn't make any sense to us. We were shuffed through a series of icon viewings and then sat in front of an altar to watch a monk perform a ritual. At the end we shuffled past an incense censure he used in the servicve. Everyone scooped some of the smoke and breathed it in, so I did the same.

I didn't understand what was going on, I'll have to look it up. Before the ritual they gave us two sealed baggies that held coconut. Later they wanted us to exchange the baggies for a discount on religious texts. In the ritual (the paja?) the monk sprinkled plant shavings on a statue while chanting and then cleaned them up. Several other monks were chanting in other areas. The floor had been roped off so that paying customers like us went up front while all the people there for service were on the floor behind us.

After the brief service I was feeling the Krishna love. I was barefoot and happy.

Then they looped us through a near-endless series of shopping stations. Buy a book, buy beads, buy art, buy a snack, then it repeated. Several times. It took a long time to get out and being barefoot in the snack stations wasn't so neat. So, I'm glad I went but I'm all set with it for now.

This is the Palace at Bangalore.

The ground is a thick red clay dust. I'd like to say I learned a lot about the owner of this place and the unbroken line of kings that were his fathers back to the 1400's. But, our guide was nearly incomprehensible.

He showed us around the mansion, which you could see was beautiful once, and tried to explain the antiques. Ah, a very old coffee maker. Hmm, a scale used to weigh jockeys. Say, an old fashioned icebox. Ok.

The tour included several pieces of furniture made from an elephant's feet an trunk. The guide offered us a chance to sit on the elephant-foot stools for pictures, but I wasn't interested in doing that. I guess it's a part of history and the Raj and all, but between this and the corridor of crude naked lady paintings I wasn't feeling terribly sympathetic with the king. He had a nice summer palace in Mysore as well by they way. At night it's lit with 80,000 light bulbs.

Later we went back to the store for some Red Bull shopping and tried to lounge around the pool. But by then the pool was closed and we mostly vegged out.

Next stop: Republic Day on Tuesday, hopefully game preserve safari next weekend.