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I needed to reserve a train ticket. I got to the station at 8AM, right when the reservation window opened. I had to wait almost an hour though and when I got my ticket, it was a ticket for the wait list. I’m number five on the list, so good chance some people with cancel their tickets and I can get on the train which is 5 days from now. One nice thing is you can buy a ticket for anywhere in India at any station, unlike China where you can only buy tickets for trains originating from that city.

After the bus dropped me off a few kilometers from Karla cave, I started noticing a lot of people around. It was difficult to walk up the steps on the hill, since they were full with so many Indians  there doing the same. I guess it was because of the weekend. When I got to the top, I noticed there was a cave and a Hindu temple in front. There was a huge line for the Hindu temple, but luckily for me the cave wasn’t so busy. These are manmade, not natural, caves made about 2000 years ago.

Karla cave looks like a cathedral was carved into the side of this mountain. It was pretty impressive. There were a few other smaller caves around, some with two floors and stairs in between.

After walking down, I hired an auto-rickshaw to take me to Bhaja caves. This is kind of a smaller version, but even older. Maybe cut out in 200BCE.

After visiting, I walked to the train station nearby and took the Pune suburban train back. This was my first time on a local train like this. Luckily, I got a seat after the second stop because it got very, very crowded inside. Just like some of the most crowded Chinese trains. It is popular because it is cheap, maybe even free. No one checked for tickets, so anyone could really just walk on. I paid 13 rupees, ($0.28). I survived and made it back to the city.

I found a bookstore in Pune called Crossword. I ended up buying a book on the History of India to read on the many more buses and trains I’m taking in the coming days. I noticed India is perhaps the cheapest place in the world to get new English language books, legally. The prices are maybe 40% lower than in places like the US.

I had a 2nd class reserved seat on the train and the ride was ok. I’m glad I wasn’t on a 2nd class unreserved train where it is a free for all and maybe you can’t get a seat and it was a 4 hour ride.

I arrived in the city of Pune and ran across the same problem with a lot of hotels being full for being very expensive. An auto-rickshaw driver took me to an area near the Osho resort where Indian people rent out rooms to guests. I also read about this in my book, but most of the places are looking for someone more long term, at least 10 days. They say because they have to register the guest with the police. Finally, I found a house that would take me, who wouldn’t register me with the police, but I had to pay a bit more because of my short stay, about $8/night.

There are a lot of foreigners in this area, most wearing red robes because of the Osho Meditation Resort nearby. I tried to get a tour of the place at least, but that was sold out. It is very popular. The cybercafes nearby are closed because they don’t have a license from the police, I noticed.

I’m headed north to a new state today. I didn’t quite wake up as early as I had planned since I was feeling a little sick. Luckily I didn’t feel sick for too long. I missed the 7AM bus I needed, so instead I had to take a lot of connections. Two buses to get to Bijapur first.  Passing through this city, I noticed an old city wall and lots of Islamic style ruins throughout the city, since it was a capital of a kingdom a few hundred years back. I found a cyber cafe mentioned in my book and started looking up flights for after India.

I took one more bus and this crossed the border into the state of Maharashtra, the richest state in India. I noticed the letters on all the signs changed because they use a different script here and another whole language called Marathi. On the way, I noticed a caravan of ox driven carts where nomadic families seemed to be moving. I was thinking you’d see this 150 years ago in the United States, but still going on here.

I arrived at the railway station in the city of Solapur, a city known for textiles. My goal was to get a train ticket for the next morning. I found the reservation office, got a reservation form, filled it out and waited in a seat. I had to wait for my number to get called, so it was very orderly and I got my ticket.

Next, I tried to find a place to sleep. First I tried inside the train station, which had some beds. It was full. I tried across the street, they were full. For the next hour or so I started walking through the city trying to find a place that wasn’t full and it was getting dark. I knew I could sit in the train station all night for the worst case. I found a big hotel when it finally got dark and they had a room for me. A tiring day.

Two nearby villages are other locations of the capital in various times in the Chalukya empire. I started off at Pattadakal. It seemed to be a continuation of yesterday, people kept bothering me for photos when I’m trying to keep my attention on the place. Most would use their mobile phones to take photos with me. Many more would just ask my name or country and shake my hand.

Afterwards, I was trying to find a bus to Aihole. The bus wasn’t very frequent, but a bus full of students on a tour invited me on their bus. It was nice of them.

Aihole was a village with ruins scattered all over and a museum. Many interesting things. I climbed a hill and happened to see a funeral take place in the distance. There was music and firecrackers and they burned the dead body in a field. Seemed like a good funeral.

Later I had a plate of yellow rice while waiting for the bus and it was a good price: 15 rupees ($0.33). They said there was only one bus back to Badami, so I made sure I got on that bus.

I went to the railway station today to get a copy of a book with the train timetables. Because of all the Internet problems, I’ve been unable to figure out the trains online, even though it is possible to buy tickets that way. One problem with the rail system in India is you almost always have to buy a few days ahead of time. So it means you have to make some more solid plans. So far I’ve been showing up at bus stations and just taking buses.

Today I took a bus to Badami, another ancient capital. This time the Chalukya Empire, about 1300 years ago. Not too many hotels here to choose from, but I got a room for $7.

I got some food at a restaurant. It was difficult to order because they had no menu and there weren’t any other customers around with much food to point to. But finally decided on something and then after, they asked if I could take some photos. Then they wanted a copy of the photos. I guess they don’t understand I can’t instantly print them a photo. After they realized I wouldn’t do that, they asked for a 20 rupee service charge. At that point, I just walked out.

I walked over to the main attraction, the Badami Caves. I noticed tons of people here today. I found out it is the Sankranti festival (start of harvest season) today in all of India, so no one is in school or work. All these Indians around got very annoying, very fast. They would make sounds like they are calling an animal or clapping. Every few seconds I would get asked where I’m from, get asked to take a picture of a person, or get asked to pose for a photo. It was hard to appreciate the ancient caves in front of me.

Later I visited a museum, walked up a hill to some forts overlooking the city, and to some other stone temples along side a lake. I found myself running away from kids a few times. They wanted to be my guides, but I didn’t ask for this. I guess this is just all apart of traveling through India.

Today, no bicycles. Just walk to the nearby places I missed. First I walked down to the river and saw people washing clothes and sheets. I noticed they would try them out by holding them up in the wind in their hands. Nearby you can see the posts of an ancient bridge for crossing the river. It isn’t until this year that they are making a replacement bridge. I saw some of the big statues left behind in the capital city and other ruins.

I was afraid in some of these areas because there are monkeys all around. I remember in China one of them grabbed a bag out of my hands and ripped it in half. Good thing nothing bad happened so far around them here.

There are a lot of cybercafes in this town. I figured out that the number of cafes is proportional to the number of foreigners in an area. The Indian food I’ve tried in this town isn’t really that great. Maybe people like to stay here to try the foreign foods, but I didn’t try.

I’m in Hampi, location of capital of the ancient Vijayanagar empire, dating between 500 and 700 years ago. It is also an area with interesting natural rock formations. I rented a bicycle and set off in the morning. The place reminds me of the acropolis in Athens, Greece at first. There are all these buildings with stone columns scattered around the hills. But there is a lot more here than what you can see in Athens.

You can tell right away that this was a huge city. Too bad most of it has been destroyed. Even though, there are giant stone walls everywhere, public baths or tanks, aqueducts, elephant stables, and foundations of royal palaces.

I visited a museum later on in the day and then Vittala temple, the biggest one in the ancient city. I was almost back to my guesthouse, but I made a mistake. I was riding a loop around the area, and this final section did not have a road. I was hoping I could still get my bicycle through, but I was stopped by some government guy who kept asking me for a gift. So I had to turn around and go the long way (10km).

I made another mistake after taking a shower. When I went to push open the metal shower door, it got stuck. I was stuck inside and no one was around, so I had to keep pushing and pushing, until I bent the door open enough so I could escape. Later I found out I was supposed to pull, not push.

I took the 9:00AM bus and arrived at 5:30PM in Hospet, the bigger city near my final destination. Then I had to wait for a local bus to Hampi. I think I got to the town after 7:00PM.

First thing I noticed was so many western people. This is the first popular tourist spot I’ve been, so up till now I’ve barely seen any. A guesthouse owner ran after me for a while until I agreed to see his place. Walking past goats, I was thinking this really is a guesthouse. He had a good price, but it was probably the worst place in town. I took it anyway.

They have the most expensive internet here so far, about double other cities.

For dinner I had a Thali, which now I’m learning is a steel plate with rice and a few things. My book says it is all-you-can-eat. I didn’t know that the first time I ordered in Mysore, and they charged a lot of money and I turned down a lot of food. But not sure every time if it is all-you-can-eat. This time I just ate what they gave me at first and they didn’t offer any more.

Luckily, this room had a mosquito net over the bed, so it was one less annoyance.

The previous day I checked the bus schedule on the wall for a bus to Hospet. It said 1:00PM was the first bus, although I was hoping for a morning bus. At that time, I made it to the bus station and asked. One employee said 1:30PM (I think), so I waited, then asked someone else and he said 7:30PM. At this point, I changed my plan and took a bus to Bangaluru.

I wanted to avoid this big city again, but I didn’t have much choice. I found a $8 room and found the bus schedule which said I can leave at 9:00AM.

I bought some fried street food. Some was really oily though. I also went to a restaurant and they gave me something with corn in it. Tasted perfect as usual. Hard to stay too salty or too oily or too hot in these restaurants, maybe this is the best part about India.

I got on a bus to Mysore, the second largest city in the state of Karnataka. I found a cheap room here and decided to go see the Royal Palace. In my book it said it was 20 rupees, but when I got there the sign said 200 rupees for foreigners. I decided to skip this and just walk around the city.

Right now, India has 22 official languages. In the state of Karnataka, the language of Kannada is used. It is not just the spoken language, but this state has a unique script used to write the language too. This is a similar case in most of the states in India, but luckily English is one of the common languages across all of India. A lot of people speak English, but it isn’t everywhere. For example, the signs on buses are in Kannada script, so I can’t read those at all.

I see a pattern in Indian hotels: no screens on the windows. They usually have bars or some kind of open vent somewhere in the room and that means mosquitoes can come right in. So I’ve had a mosquito or two at every hotel so far in the middle of the night. Tonight, I sprayed the repellant all over my face, burning my eyes. The rest of my body is ok. I didn’t sleep too well.

I don’t think I like Mysore too much, the street is so loud with horns and engines that I think I need earplugs and all the autorickshaws with their 2-cycle motor polluting the air make it hard to breath. Think I need a gasmask too.

There is a really good restaurant right next to the hotel though. I think my first favorite Indian dish is called Masala Dosa.