The rest of the story

OK so here's the rest of the Mysore story ... brace yourself!. So there I am, 8am on a Saturday morning, on a train platform waiting on a train for Mysore. I'd parted with a princely sum of 24 rupees and was still pi**ed, having not been to bed. I braved the toilet and wished I hadn't ... the chances of getting something nasty were very high indeed. But hey it was fun.....

So onto the train I goes ... a sleeper train in fact. To be honest the train out to Mysore was quiet comfortable really, so I couldn't see what all the fuss was about Indian trains. I even met a couple of nuns taking a school field trip. They were intrigued with the camera, so I took a group photo and promised to pass it onto there convent school. Safety is clearly not a big issue on the train system here, never on a British Rail train have I seen two character hanging out of the door! But hey they seemed happy enough.

So hit Mysore 3 hours later, a little tired by this time as I'd been up all night. So it was off to the Raj's palace. Very impressive place it was to, kind of like an old stately home. I especially liked the penguin litter bins - now were in India is famous for penguins?. Anyways got stopped on the way into the palace for having a camera in my bag, the exchange of rupees with security reaffirmed my belief that money can buy you anything in India!. And this includes pictures of places you shouldn't take pictures of!

It was then back in the rickshaw and toby round the town, nice and quaint but also very hot. Time was not on my side by this point so back to Bangalore, via the train of course. Now if the journey out can be described as pleasant, the journey back can't!. 5 million people wanted to get onto that train, so the old rugby skills came in handy ... after a push, a pull and loss of temper I got on. Happy to be on, I wasn't to vexed about a seat ... big mistake, huge!. Considering this was meant to be an express train, I struggle to find out how they define express, since this train was nothing of the sort. It stopped everywhere on the way to Bangalore, and I mean everywhere. Each time it stopped, another thousand people crammed on - I mean this got beyond a joke. The real p**s take was when a monkey decided to join us for a short period in the carriage causing mayhem. Bring back British Rail, this is singularly the longest, most crowded, most unpleasant train trip of my life.... but I got home in the end...

End result of the day, notes to self don't go with bright idea's had when drunk, and second never listen to cost saving iniatives suggested by rickshaw drivers..... However, all in all a great experience! Bring on the bus.. :)