On Monday Jan. 26 it was "Republic Day" here in India and it was a day off from work. We had been invited to go to the horse races here in town- there were to be festivities and racing. However, two days before, someone realized that there was to be an eclipse that afternoon. Horses, being superstitious creatures, apparently did not like the idea of running that day, so the races were postponed to Jan. 28. Thus, we had a free day to do as we pleased. We decided to have our driver work this day and take us north of the city to the "Nandi Hills". The road north is generally good because the new airport is in that direction. Once off of the main road, the road was less good, but not bad. Along the way many people were holding out bunches of grapes for sale but we kept going. The Nandi Hills stick up out of the earth somewhat abruptly and the climb up is along a winding road. We saw a number of monkeys sitting on the walls by the road watching the cars go by. The traffic was surprisingly light considering it was a holiday. We arrived at a point where we had to pay money to go further and we decided to walk into the upper part of the hill. The sun was bright, but it was not too hot, still the climb took effort since we both have had respiratory illnesses recently. We stopped and saw one monkey eating pieces of watermelon. They come very close to people and vice- versa. The crowd was not bad at all. We continued to walk and a few people said hello. Near the top we found a hotel and some temples and a home built for "Mark Cubbon" who was a British administrator in the 1800's. There is a road in Bangalore named for him- as well as a large park.
He apparently went to the Hills in the hottest months. 
The views from the Hill are very nice long distance views. There were many monkeys around of all ages from very tiny to fairly large. We got separated and wandered on our own until we both headed down to our car after awhile and we met on the path. From time to time we impress ourselves by how we seem to end up in the same place at the same time. Once, around 1991 Jim was in England on business and Janet was going to try to join him there for some vacation, but we were not certain we could do it and Janet was not feeling well. The day that we were to meet in Oxford or London, Jim got a message from the hotel saying to "call Janet". Since it was early morning in the US, Jim decided to take the train onward to Bath and Call Janet from there later in the day. the train ride was uneventful, but when Jim got up to leave the train in Bath, there was Janet walking down the aisle! Not only did we get on the same train at different stops, but we were in the same car! The message she gave the hotel was much more complicated and explained that we would meet in Bath, but the hotel staff apparently did not feel compelled to record such trivia and just wrote "call Janet". Anyway, meeting on the trail was not quite so surprising as that. We wlked down closer to the car and saw "Tipu Sultan's Lodge" .
We mentioned him before. He ruled this area in the late 1700's and was killed in a battle with the British at Srirangapatna- near Mysore. He had a small lodge built on this mountain at some time. We then found our driver and went down the mountain. We stopped to have lunch at a resort, but they had no restaurant. We did get some grapes.On the road home we saw some fortifications near the main road so we asked the driver to drive in to take a look. This was "Fort Devanhalli". We thought it was built by the British but the signs said it was built by Tipu Sultan and his father in the 1700's. The sign said that Tipu Sultan was actually born here! We noticed several markings on the fort with a sort of "Mughal" decoration, so it made sense after seeing that Tipu Sultan had built parts of the fort. There are now houses all over
inside the walls, but vistors can walk up pn the ramparts and look out over the countryside. We then road back to Bangalore and had a light late lunch and went home. It was a nice day and we got to see some historical sites.
No comments:
Post a Comment