It was a good experience looking at the sprawling palace where the royal kings of Travancore and their families lived for centuries. Right from a spoon to the giant elephant( made from the real skin of the elephant) it is purely the royal family's personal affairs. I wondered how those kings rolling literally on heaps of gold and wealth could live such a life of royalty and luxury when thousands of their citizens were struggling to get even one meal a day. Whatever was kept in the palace boasts of the royal family's richness, the carefully made wood cravings, and imported porcelain vessels from China which only conveys how selfish the kings were. Had the kings utilized some of the golden ornaments, worth a trillion US dollars today, stashed inside its treasury, many poor people who lived in the Travancore region could have had a few more hearty meals and may be a shade better life.