Day 29, Bangalore [Tuesday 1st January 2008 - New Year's Day]
Previous day: Day 28, Bangalore [Monday 31st December 2007 - New Year's Eve]
Next day: Day 30, Hampi [Wednesday 2nd January 2008]
We book the train from Bangalore to Hospet, near Hampi. We go on a waiting list in 8th place, following a particularly officious exchange with the tourist counter clerk who insists on our home address and passport details going on the reservation form.
We go to the Botanical Gardens to wait the day out. Bangalore is not the easiest place in the world to relax.
Eat some upma at the Tiffin Rooms, a Bangalore institution, along with a butter drenched masala dosa.
On the train we manage to get seats, after a minor complication - a minor BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, right wing nationalists) politician thinks he has our seat too, and he won't budge. He's constantly on his mobile, talking loudly, and the couple opposite tell us he's trying to organise a political rally for tomorrow and needs 28 buses to move people around. The couple turn out to be documentary filmmakers. They're currently working on a film about high maternal death rates in the town of Koppel, near Hospet, which has reached 29/1000. This, they say, is due to lack of medical supplies, no blood bank, no training and no education. They couple are educated, well travelled and extremely interesting. They show some concern that we get our seats - probably so that they don't have to spend any more time with the politician, with whose right wing politics they are diametrically opposed.
Next day: Day 30, Hampi [Wednesday 2nd January 2008]
Previous day: Day 28, Bangalore [Monday 31st December 2007 - New Year's Eve]