May 4, 2009 Bangalor, India

There was not a post yesterday, because I was on "la train" for 23-1/2 hours. It was a pleasant trip.... plenty of room, good bed, sheets, blanket, pillow, toilets available, and AIR CONDITIONING!

I mentioned that I took a Subway sandwich for breakfast, well, about 10 at night they came around taking orders for breakfast, so I said yes, bring me one! - don't won't to miss anything!

..it cost 40 cents.

Had a good night, good reading time, and good sleeping. When breakfast came, I was almost dreading it, but it turned out okay. There were two dishes. One was cold grits (they don't call them that but that's what they were, and Indian flavored hush puppies with slivers of green peppers in them, and a bowl of white "gravy" sorta. But it was something you could dip both things in. . It was all edible and filling. Not Delicious, but definitely not bad tasting or bad feeling.

I was looking forward to my subway for lunch. I was sitting with a family on holiday - they were nice - and at lunch they fixed for me and insisted I take a plate of food. (I wanted my subway!). Anyway - it was good, it was a chapatti (big flour tortilla) and a pile of crushed nuts. All kinds. You put them on the chapatti, a little at a time, a it was kinda like a peanut butter sandwich that

taste different. So about an hour later, I pulled out my Subway, and MAN , it was good. It had survived the travel and the heat and was worth the effort. Nice when a plan comes together.

I got to my hotel about 10, with no supper. Nice hotel, named Citizen Lodge. I had actually called and reserved a room the day before. I have never done that before in all my travels. Getting old, getting HOT, getting late when I arrived. I was glad I had the hotel. No AC, but it was comfortable with a fan, and it cost $10.00. These big cities cost more than the little places.

But one thing the big cities have is good food in MY opinion. There was a restaurant next to the hotel still open. They had chicken grilled some Indian way, but real pieces of chicken with bones in it and mushy stuff around it. It was wonderful. Going back before I leave town and get some more CHICKEN with bones!!!

The zipper on my day bag broke again. So I got a new zipper put in this time. The zipper, and the installation cost me 60 cents! Hope the quality is better than last time. The little shop the man had was little. It was a foot and half deep!!! I'm not kidding, about 8 feet wide - and 1-1/2 feet deep. Keeps down the overhead, the heating , cooling, and building maintenance I guess. He had a shop with about 12 square feet. His sewing machine was 1/2 in and 1/2 out of his shop.

Across the street from his shop was the Disposable Plate Company. These guys were busy cutting and sorting and stacking banana leaves for sale in the market fast food restaurants and for that "busy" housewife, who just doesn't have time to run 1/2 mile down the street to the local broken water pipe to fill up her containers with water for dish washing.

This is a terribly slow connection, and poor computer - so I'm fixin to stop now and see if I can upload this - sorry... pictures are out of place again - they took forever to get in, and then I accidentally deleted them - so I'm headin to the chickin place.

type y'all later

Johnny