In Hospet

Each place I go, I expect not to be able to use the internet, but I keep finding places. That's a tougher task in Hospet than in some other places.

I was in sleeper class on the 3 hour ride over here. Now I see why 2A/C class is so much better. Luckily it wasn't crowded at all. I sat across from a guy with glasses and a nice shirt and he spoke English well, so I figured things would be fine. That is until he hocked a lung on my bag. The guy in the next seat was talking to himself. They both left at the same time and I had the whole section to myself. Later, an old guy sat across from me and ate peanuts. He tried to throw the shells out the window and they kept landing on me. Eventually we started talking. He told me to go to Pakistan and then find out who is good and who is bad (India or Pakistan) and tell the American people. He said Musharraf was "the worst fellow" and he liked Bush because he is "tough" and sometimes you need a tough guy. But the old guy was cool. He liked me because when he asked me to guess, I was 10 years younger on his age. I guessed 60.

From the train station into town there were stone stores and shacks lined left and right of the dirt street. It was night and I got a little anxious. I walked further and discovered a more urbanized area. The streets here are filled with fancy cars, autorickshaws, motorcycles, tractors, huge trucks, cows, goats, and luxury buses. Women walk with their goods on their head (like you see on those National Geographic things). The autorickshaw drivers pray on foreigners, but when I ate breakfast today, there was a crowd of young busboys staring at me in astonishment.

I can't really describe more; it's a bit much for me to process. I leave for Hampi soon. I hope I can find the right bus and find accomodations for the three days I'll be staying there. Then it's off to Bangalore on the train ticket I bought on the internet (thank the lord, I can avoid dealing with buying them at the train station now).