Srirangapatnam was our destination today. This is a fort town located 16klm from Mysore and is most famous as the seat of power for Hyder Ali and, later, his son Tipu Sultan. The last named in particular brought back echo's of long forgotten Primary School history lessons for me. Tipu Sultan ruled over the majority of southern India from here up until his death in 1799 at the hands of the British. In and around these parts we saw:- 1) The Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple - this was built in the year 892 and is still in daily use judging by the number of devotees that shared the structure with us as we went through it. I am certainly no expert but the building looks to be built in the Dravidian style which is common to southern India and includes the gopuram type gateway. Outside was a very large two-wheeled wooden cart featuring carvings of many Hindu deitys - our auto rick-shaw driver, Hussan, told us this cart is drawn by 'many people' during particular festivals. It's pretty trick - check out the photo's. 2) A twin tower Mosque built by Tipu Sultan - Obviously an old structure now as it must have been built before 1799, perhaps at a time pre-dating Captain Cook's arrival in Australia. 3) Some little distance away is the Daria Daulat Bagh - a timber building set in very well kept gardens. This was a summer palace for Tipu Sultan which, at some stage after his death, was occupied by Colonel Arthur Wellesley who later became the Duke of Wellington. The interior walls and ceilings are completely covered in artistic decorations, floral designs and murals showing scenes of life under Tipu and of campaigns against the British. There is also something of a collection of bits and pieces relative to Tipu, including a few sets of clothing belonging to him, weaponry and sketches and paintings. 4) Also in this region there is a smallish garden area with a plaque showing the specific spot where Tipu Sultan met his end. 5) We also dropped in to check out the structure called Colonel Bailey's Dungeon - at one time or another the Colonel had prisoners incarcerated here whilst Tipu Sultan controlled this at different times and he too used it to house his enemies. 6) Lastly, we visited the very pretty Gumbaz, a mausoleum which houses the remains of Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan and his Wife. This structure, together with a separate Mosque, is set in landscaped gardens and was obviously popular with tourists - Des & I being two of only a very small number of obvious Western types. Back to Mysore with a stop at the Zoo. This dates from the late 1800's and houses a large variety of birds and animals. The walk through it covers 2.8 kilometres. We saw elephants, tigers, jaguars, hippo's, giraffes, eclectus parrots, toucans, sulpher crested cockatoos and many others. There is one (presumably) lonely lowland Gorilla, a very bored and almost totally hairless Chimpanzee, one Wallaby and a large number of rainbow lorikeets. Although the animals look well fed etc, it's still sad to see them locked away from their natural lives. A full day for us and, in my case, a touch of sunburn to top it off. Dinner tonight was at the restaurant in the RRR Hotel next door - we had our first go at a Thali meal and very good it was. I must say though, as big and well fed as we are, I can't understand how Indians can pack away so much food! When we didn't ask for more the Waiters looked at us like we were joking. It's a mystery. Cheers,