Bangalore day 19

A blog by @mircwalsh

Bangalore day 19

Thursday 20th August.

Today I sat with nothing to do again all day. The newspaper world in India is clearly more relaxing with no one worrying about deadlines.

Eventually at 3.30 after sitting for 6 hours with no work I was given a story on nude yoga. Yes a great topic of conversation in India so great that everyone I rang hung up on me. Eventually I managed to get it done and rushed home to pack for hampi.

After dinner we left nice and early so to be at the train station on time. Arriving in the station we were shocked by the sight. People lying down all over the ground, people begging, kids starving it was definitely the poorest place we had visited so far.

There were no boards telling us train platforms so we queued up at general enquiries to ask. There was no such thing as a queue really but scream at the guy behind the counter and whoever is loudest gets the answer. He told us to go to platform 8 where we went and queued. We were there at about 20.20 and our train was not due till 10pm so we sat down on the ground and waited. It was not long before a rat scurried my way. YUCK!

Trains came and went and eventually the hampi train came. We looked and looked for s9 but no one could help us. The Indian people ignored us and others gave out for asking. We kept walking past a ginger guy whilst Indian guys stared out from their carriage. He came to the conclusion we were on the wrong platform. With less than ten minutes to go we ran and asked for help. This time we were told platform 10. We got there and waited and we assured it was the right train. Then a guy asked if I wanted some chai tea I replied no and he asked where we were going. After replying hampi he pointed to platform 9 and said that was our train. Rushing over to the then moving train we were shouted at to jump on whereas others told us no. We didn’t know what to do and were too scared to jump on a moving train so we just watched as it left.

With nothing else to do we left the station and decided to go home. Outside the station we stood by some sandbags deciding what to do. We were quickly ushered away after which we realised we were directly in front of the firing line of two guns!

We quickly hopped in an auto which demanded 250 to get back. Way overcharged we decided to just pay it and get home.
Arriving back he looked at the 250 and demanded an extra 100. Already ripped off we refused as he began muttering abuse. We ran up the street and went a long way home so he would not know where we lived.

Getting back no one could believe what had happened

So no hampi for the weekend but we still did have an adventure.