why would she choose a sitar player over the *maharaja*?

so i thought i was all sorted out with my train ticket for last night. the guy at the guesthouse gave me the ticket which said that the train was to leave at 9:25. my book said 8:10, but schedules change, whatever. i had planned to be back in hospet (the town where the train station is) by 7. but as often happens dinner took a little longer than i imagined (the service is very "shanti, shanti") and i didn't get the bus back to hospet until 7.

my auto-rickshaw pulled up to the station around 8 o'clock. i got out, asked the man where the train for bangalore (where i change trains for mysore) was. he said here. i sat and read for a bit and a train pulled up. so i got on, and crawled into my bunk, thinking we would be there for a while. but instead we pulled out of the station really quickly. so i'm sitting. thinking. on the outside of the train it said "hubli <-> bangalore". then panic took over, i was thinking oh-no... i'm going to hubli... so i asked a girl sitting near me, and she assured me the train was going to bangalore. i asked if we had left early. she said no. so upon closer inspection of my ticket i noticed that the part with the departure time was for boarding in another town - so stroke of luck that i caught the bus i did out of hampi, got to the station when i did..... i would have been one un-happy hippie.

of course the hassle didn't end there (but honestly, i don't think it ever ends here...). a family of people got on and i can see them looking at their tickets, looking at my bunk, looking at their tickets. so we compare tickets, and while mine is an actualy computer printout of the seat number, his is written on in pen. so i'm thinking there's no way in hell i'm giving up this bunk. but in the end it turned out that they had been given one seat in the next car with the same bunk number. so they asked if i minded using the other one, and i didn't, whatever.

so a long night on the train, not sleeping much. then a short ride from bangalore to mysore where i nearly fell asleep sitting up. and now i'm here, in the presence of the *maharaja's* palace. and it's my birthday. so since i'm on my own i decided to take myself out to eat (like i don't do that everyday...). i also decided to go a little crazy and get some chinese food, as i have my very own sit down toilet in my room here.

so i've had my lunch and i'm feeling another nap coming on... overnight trains take a lot out of me. my hotel has a restaurant downstairs that looks quite cool and apparently has live music in the evenings, so that's my plan for my birthday dinner. i also am going to buy myself a birthday sari, though i don't think i'm quite up for it today. it'll have to be a belated birthday sari.

actually, besides the palace i'm not that impressed with mysore, it's pretty much like every other place i've been... i'm really starting to look forward to the ashram.