Some Experiences are Better Than Others...

Since we had been traveling mostly by bus, we decided to give train travel another shot for our trip to Mysore. We had loved using the trains in Europe, but we found the Indian train system to be complicated. They frequently oversell trains, and it is possible to buy a ticket for a train with no seats available. Hundred for people buy tickets and are placed on a wait list. They are allowed to board the train, and people will sleep wherever they can find a space, doubling up, sleeping on the floor, or in the space between cars. We booked through a local travel agent who was familiar with the system and could get us seats on a train that was booked. We arrived on the train to find people sleeping in our beds. We showed our tickets,
and they grudgingly agreed to move. We squeezed ourselves and our luggage onto the top bunks, and settled in for a long ride. We arrived in Mysore exhausted from our travels. The first three hotels that we visited were booked. Desperate, we took a recommendation from our rickshaw driver. He took us to a hotel that we just off the main road, near the main sights, offering a clean room at a reasonable price. We were thrilled to find that we had hot water and cable television all for the bargain price of 325 rupees per night! Unfortunately, as they say, things that seem too good to be true, often are. Our “clean hotel” had bed bugs. It was a nightmare! We never saw them, but we woke up covered in bites. We had hundreds. We packed up and decided to move to splurge on a nice hotel. We found one that our book recommended, and even splurged on an upgraded room. We went straight to the pharmacy for some cortizone cream, and then sent everything we owned to the laundry, just in case. We sat in the hotel all day, with hardly a stitch of clothing, watching tv, waiting for our clothes to come back, and trying not to itch. It took two full weeks for the bites to heal.

Mysore