Mysore Transportation

C. Ramaswamy is the union organizer for all the drivers in Mysore - so if you take another auto-rickshaw mention his name and you will get service. Friendly & polite and tirelessly committed - I was looking for specific antiques and he searched the city on his own time until he found them. He'll take you about the city and will arrange a car for the out-districts. A real find.

I booked my bus to Ooty with a private company called Kiran Travels who are based on Chandragupta Road, near the Wesley Cathedral and Clock Tower. They picked me up from my hotel at about 7.45am in a rickety looking and dirty small bus with thread-bare hard seats. We picked up more people and eventually got going at about 8.30am. The bus goes through Bandipur National Park on the way which is nice but I didn't see any tigers or elephants. On the other side in Tamil Nadu, we started to climb up into the Nilgiri Hills via 36 hairpin bends and reached Ooty at about 1pm. The journey cost me Rs150.

Mini-buses to Srirangapatna depart from near the clock tower on Chandragupta Road. However, they wait until there's enough passengers on board and even drive around a bit to find more before heading off towards Srirangapatna. Even though it's only 16km (10 miles) away it took us an hour as the driver I had was going at a snail’s pace in order to pick up more people along the way which I and a few other passengers got angry about. The bus will drop you off on the main road, south of the town and you'll have to walk the rest which isn't far. The bus cost me Rs10.

Mysore Junction train station is located to the west of the city centre and is a little bit of a walk to get to from here. The first railway line established in the city was the Bangalore-Mysore Junction line, which was commissioned in 1882. This is the line I came on when I arrived from Bangalore on the Shatabdi Express (No. 2007) which left Bangalore at 11:00 and arrived at 13:00. For more information, visit the website below:

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When going to nagarhole national park.i recommend you to take the route that directly goes to heggadadevankote or HD kote for short.there you take left to go to karapur where 3 splendid resorts are located the famed kabini river lodge cicada resorts and the orange county.
alternate route is via hunsur to HDkote howver this road is pretty bad after hunsur.

On the way to Mysore there are two great stops along the way. Just before Chennapatna is the Kamat Hotel that has a tribal museum and just after Chennapatna is Indra Dhanush and Coffee Day side by side.

There's no point in hiring a car&driver in you go from Mysore to Bangalore or the other way. There is a daily (I think, with the exception of Tuesday) Shatabdi train from Mysore to Chennai (Madras) that goes via Bangalore. It takes less than 2 hours for the train to cover the 140 km between Mysore and Bangalore and as every Shatabdi train, compartments are air-conditioned, comfortable (even accourding to western-European standards) and snacks+mineral water and coffee or tea is included in the fare (around Rs. 250.-/person). It is a bargain.

A car and a driver met us at Bangalore station and took us from Bangalore to Mysore, Ooty, Madurai and Periyar before we boarded our backwaters cruise.

This was arranged prior to our arrival in India by our agent Simon Bazely.

We did feel that either we would have liked a larger vehicle for the four of us, or perhaps we should have brought soft bags as kuggage rather than a hard suitcase. The end effect was that there was very little room with one passenger in the front seat and three of us in the back seat.

The driver spoke very little English, almost non-existant, but with the help of sign language, other people translating and a lot of gesticulation, we had no trouble undersranding each other. He was exceptionally helpful and courteous.