The ride to Mysore

So, I had to get out of Goa! I would have had to have waited three days to get a train, so I booked a bus out of Goa to Mangalore on the western coast. In theory, from there I could get on any local train that leaves a few times a day that heads to Mysore...The only problem is once I got to Mangalore I learned that the tracks are 'under repair.' Which meant that I had to go BACK to the bus station where I was lucky enough to be in time to get a seat on the 6:30 am bus leaving for Mysore.

Now the fact that the bus was basically a sardine can didn't bother me too much. The seats were wood with worn out foam padding...Okay fine, can handle it. In typical Indian fashion there are bars on the windows and only 2 exits from the bus...Well, at least there were 2 exits and not just 1. So I'm locked and barred into a small death trap that's now barreling down the road as fast as the driver can push the throttle...Wait, lets back up here. I don't know of "road" is exactly the right word. Maybe 20 years ago it was a road, but now it is more like a continual series of pot holes about 1.5 lanes wide--and there is 2 way traffic, mind you-- throw in the little tid bit that we're traveling through mountains (which were beautiful) and you now have a recipe to scare the hell out of me for 4 hours! These 'roads' switchback up and down the foothills between Mangalore and Mysore for about 4 of the 7 HOURS I was on the bus. I tried as hard as I could not to be scared, I mean no one else on the bus had white knuckles or looked terrified...But then I started thinking about how the Hindu religion has a totally different outlook on life...And also a different value placed on human life. The driver figures that if we run off the road it was "probably our time" and that's why he felt the need to drive like Hunter S. Thompson. H.S. Thompson always said that he would drive "at top speed, in any weather conditions and in any type of terrain" and boy did he ever.

We arrived unscathed! At which point I had my first run-in with a tout. I walked up to the pre-paid taxi stand and as opposed to actually using it to get where I wanted I got into a rickshaw with someone who walked up to me offering a ride. I had two or three places I thought I wanted to stay and passed the addresses along to the driver...at which point he pulls out and goes the opposite direction. He tells me those places are "under demolition" (which was a lie I found out only later when I called one of the places). I wanted to go to the hotel Mauyara--he took me to the hotel Mauyara Place...about a Rs 400 a night difference. After getting annoyed and angry and showing him on the map EXACTLY where I wanted to go he still took me some where different. Annoyed (and stupidly) I took a room at one of the places he took me...The room sux! First off, the guy shows me a rate sheet...Rs 380 a night. I told it was too much and walked away. The guy ended up knocking the price down to Rs 225 a night, okay fine...but after I took the room, I realized how not fine it is. The place is just crappy...and I'm paying too much for it. So, I'll stay there tonight and move on to where I want to stay tomorrow.

that's what I get for using a tout. Grrr