Hospet, Karnataka, India
Friday, April 15, 2011
We got up early as we had a taxi arranged to pick us up at 6am to take us to the train station. The taxi didn't show up. Luckily we managed to flag another one down and arrive at the station in time to catch our train. When we arrived at the station, we found it quite easy to figure out which platform we needed to be on. We found our platform and waited for our train. The station was busy and much like we expected... men walking round carrying bigs urns of boiling water shouting 'Chai, Chai' there were women coming up to us dressed in beautiful saris but begging for money or food. Stray dogs wandering around sniffing in the rubbish bins etc. Our train arrived on time and we hopped on and found our seet. We had paid for a sleeper class ticket which means you get a sort of bed to sleep on. This is a day time journey so we didn't really plan on sleeping but it did mean we had a lot of space. The train isn't air conditioned but it doesn't really need to be - as soon as you get moving, the air rushes in from the open windows to cool you down. There are many people wandering up and down the train selling food and drinks... the Indian family who sat across from us let us try some of their food.. we don't know what it was but it tasted nice! It was like a mix of spices, chickpeas and coriander and had small white flowers sprinkled on top of it. All in all the train journey was much easier than we expected and the time flew by. We arrived at
Hospet train station and were jumped on as soon as walked outside by Indians trying to get you to go to their hotel or to sell you a rickshaw ride. It was fairly suffocating! We ignored them and jumped into a rickshaw and told the driver to take us to Hotel Karthik. We already had a reservation but the guy on the desk tried to charge us 200rs more than the advertised price. He back off as soon as Aaron said "no chance!" we headed out in the evening for food but
Hospet is crazy! The streets are bustling with cars, rickshaws, mopeds and cows! We didn't find anywhere to eat so headed back to the hotel for food.
