Mysore: A sad experience

Enter Mysore city and you see hoarding boasting about the heritage and culture. Mysore the prime tourist destination in Karnataka fell really short of my expectations during my recent visit to the city. Here are two of the most important reasons why I say so.

1. Bangalore Mysore Highway:
BMIC project was supposedly developed with the good intentions of catering a hassle free travel between in Bangalore Mysore. 134 km stretch is mostly 4 lanes between these tourism hubs in state. But still you will take around 3hrs to cover this distance. Anything less than that will come tagged with a high risk to your and others life. For now, none of the city or village on the way is bypassed. No flyover to cross them also. So any vehicle has to break it's speed. To add on to the worries, there are speed breakers built all along the road. Now its a simple guess only that these are not build as part of the project but just come up on wish of villagers and roadside shop owners. How can they be allowed to play with project involving so much public money just like that is a big question. These 3 hours journey just eats up a traveler's time.


2. Unorganised Setup:
Mysore tourism will always be synonymous with Srirangapatnam. Tails of Tipu's bravado and charisma are as attractive as the paintings in the corridor of Mysore palace. Still somehow tourism in Srirangapatnam is left on its own. All the places there are run on their own, or at least they appear to be so. There is nothing like any rules or policy in terms of facility and services for the tourist. Can you believe that each spot they charge you whopping 30 rs as parking fee!!

Chamundi Hills was a similar experience too. There are toll gates put up on the way where you need to pay the entry fee. You never know what they are charging for, as most of the basic amenities are not present or even if they are there, they are in really bad shape.

The guides and agents are always on look for duping unsuspecting tourist, specially outsiders. One policeman stopped vehicle and charges 30 rs for no fault of ours. The driver later told us that it is the custom. If you don't pay him, he will find something or other wrong on your part and make you pay more. Nothing else, then he will surely kill your time and ruin the day.

The temples like Somnathpura are not in the best of conditions. At many a places it's just a tragedy like falling wall awaited to open eyes for the tourism department and ASI. ASI's role in all these places is really questionable. While at one end they charge the entry fee, inside you see priests and other local people running their own shows. I pity those foreigners who pay 2-5$ to visit such places.

3. Lack of Infrastructure:
Mysore palace is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful palace in India. But the facility there are really pathetic. One can not the reason behind ban on camera and footwear inside the palace. Given that there are no proper arrangements for clean and comfortable pathways between the two palaces. Restrooms or water dispensers are hardly visible inside the big campus. And they charge tourist entry fee. Not to forget there is a private section of the museum also which charges you 20 rs for nothing. I don't know who actually controls this palace and the museum, but they have surely put up a bad show. They are just banking on the glory from past. How long it can go on like these is the question of most importance.

Tourism is a full time business which generates so much of direct and indirect employment. It clearly needs a better deal than what it gets currently in Mysore.