The Train, and Mysore

For a start, the train journey down to Bangalore was 34 hours, not 28. But it wasn't that bad. First of all we had to get a train back up to Delhi, and then we waited around in the train station (Nizamuddin) cafe for a few hours. When it as finally time to amble to the platform, we were both disappointed to discover that we didn't have our own two-bunk cabin, but we were sharing a four-bunk with two Indian men.
We boarded and, eventually, the train set off. It turned out that there was only one other guy, and by speaking to him we discovered that he had, before he retired, run the entire Indian rail network, and been chair of the Ghandi Foundation. So he wasn't too bad. The cabin was fairly large and comfortable, and they did indeed feed us as much as we were afraid they would, although the food was Indian and not incedibly appetising; the only "western" meal turned out to be a curry, but with noodles.. The waiter/porters were very helpful and polite, and with our books, sudoku and cards, and watching India go by, we whiled away the hours. For the last evening and night we managed to acquire a room of our own, which was nice.
That night, Alex was rather ill. She felt pretty queasy the next day, too, so it was good that we didn't have too much to do.
Arriving in Bangalore, we had to wait for a train to Mysore. We had a few hours to wait, but luckily there was a comfortable, air conditioned waiting room with fake leather chairs for us to lounge on.
For that train we were in First Class AC, which was probably even more comfortable than English first class! Lots of legroom, our own fans above the seats, and coleslaw sandwiches (yuck!). We were both feeling fragile, so we were very thankful that we'd booked ourselves into first class.

We had arranged for a car to pick us up at the station. We went to have a look round Mysore Palace, for an hour or so, it's a really interesting display of Hindu-inspired architecture (more accurately, indo-sacracenic) and has some colonial paintings and history, too. There was lots of very colourful, ornate detail, especially the cavernous main hall, with stained glass windows and long, thin pillars. We didn't stay too long. As we left, it started raining. Really, really raining.
Our driver then had instructions to go to Gudalore. He ended up trying to take us to a local "Cottage Industries" store, which sell tourist-friendly overpriced stuff and pay drivers a cut for delivering tourists. So we refused to get out the car. After a detour to swap cars for a four-wheel-drive (god knows why they didn't send one in the first place, they knew where we were headed) we were off.
The trip was long. As we got further away from Mysore, the roads got worse and worse, until we were bouncing along pot-holed roads in first gear, and driving round the herds of goats being driven down the roads ahead of us. The weather got worse and worse too, until it was raining torrentially. It was getting cooler, though, which was nice. Eventually, we bumped into Colin in Gudalore, and made our way to the hostel-type place, called "Deep Jungle Home".