2025 Jan-India Wed 22. Hampi.

I suffered (am suffering) from real world struggles... travelling with the elderly and the clueless. It pains me. The level of tourist absent-mindedness surprises me. I am shocked. 

The main culprits are elderly British women and Americans. Yes, it is true. I am surprised that these tourists are not scammed more or leave more of their possessions behind. Always leaving things behind on the shuttle buses.

I will give you an example by an Americsn lady. I am not making this up. It happened this morning right in front of my sleepy eyes. It was not a dream.

1) The Indian sleeper train has a fixed top bed, a fixed bottom bed, and the lower bed back rest that folds up to form the middle bed. Refer to pictures. 

2) You cannot setup, or take down the middle bed if there is anything on the lower bed/seat. It would get in the way of the setup.

3) So, after sleeping was over in the morning, there was bedding on the top, middle, and lower beds, plus day packs.

4) The American wanted to convert the middle bed platform back into the backrest to form a seat for comfortable seating.

5) Now, the pain begins... the American moves the bedding and bag from the middle to lower bed surface... which thus blocks the middle platform from rotating back down.

6) The American then moves the bedding and day packs from the lower bed platform to the middle platform. This would mean everything would fall onto the floor as the middle is rotated to form the backrest.

7) Finally, it occurred to the American that she should have put all the bedding and small day packs onto the top bed, making it easier to revert the middle bed platform into a lower seat backrest.

8) But that is not the end of the story! There is a lot of unfolded bedding and she tries to put it all precariously onto one, of the two available top beds...it did not occur to her to also use the spacious other top bed platform (use all the available space).

I was mentally hurting so much at this time. Has humankind actually digressed in our evolution? 

I contemplated if this was all I had left to look forward to?  

It was a pivotal point in my life. I was at the cusp of ejecting myself from the moving train, to end my anguish. 

You may think that I was overreacting, but you would be incorrect. I was watching a bad comedy skit happening in real life. 

The universe was taking the piss out of me.

Now, for the old English woman example. This was also painful to experience.

Every, single, time we go out to dinner, the process of ordering food is a chore and a drama. This English woman is supposedly a teacher by profession. I feel for the students of England if this is the quality of teachers in your school system. Piss poor.

The indecisiveness in ordering, not waiting for the person to respond in full when asked a question, talking over the other members...acting exactly as how young students would act...but this from a teacher. I never saw this kind of behaviour from my teachers when I was at school in Australia. How can you be an effective teacher if you behave like one of your students? 

This same English woman, travelling in India, only brings ballerina-type slipper shoes, which has little to no cushioning. The Indian tour walks over all manner of rough surfaces. Then the English woman complains that her feet are sore...FFS! 

You come to India, where the country is primarily underdeveloped, and you wear shoes that have literally zero sole...and you make that comment...where is the Hindu god Shiva when you need them (the god who is known as the destroyer)?

I have way too much spare time, as we wait in the hotel lobby for the rooms to be ready. I hate wasting holiday time. Best to use it productively, to have a holiday rant. 

The morning started off badly with having wasted 4hrs for check-in (we arrived early). It would have been better to have done some activity instead of just sitting in the lobby.

However, today turned out great!

We crossed the Tungabhadra River, visited an old village (Anegundi), drove through epic green rice fields, visited the wonderful Tungabhadra Left Canal, saw the sunset at Anjanadri Betta (Kishkindha). Amazing views from the top. As we headed back to the hotel, we could see the glow of a sugar cane burn.

This turned out to be a great day after all.