We were ready and packed by 5 p.m. The previous day itself Nirmala told her familiar Auto rickshaw drivers to be at the door 6 p.m.sharp. And they were there. Rao carried all the luggage and loaded the autos in his usual efficient way. The train was scheduled to depart at 7:15 p.m. We reached the Tirupathi station by 6:15. The railway porters left us at a spot where our bogie would arrive on the platform and told us that they would be back when the train (The Rayalaseema Express)arrived. At 6:35, there was power failure (which is very common) and exactly at 7:30 p.m. the train arrived and the power resumed. The porters came as promised and we boarded the train.
There was a lot of commotion and confusion regarding the seat # allocation. The #s on the e-ticket we were holding were all different from the list that the Railway inspector had. We learned that as they added an extra berth above the side seats, the numbering in their database had changed, but the station where they issued the tickets did not implement those changes yet. Now we knew how to find our seat#.
The fellow passengers were all wonderful. I woke up on the 5th by 3:30 a.m. Brushed my teeth. Was hoping that Nirmala would sleep longer. If she woke up, she has to brush her teeth immediately and I was afraid that that would trigger her need for hot coffee which would be impossible to get on a train at that hour. I dozed off and woke up again around 7 a.m. and Nirmala had to wait for her first cup of coffee till 8:30 a.m. By then, we passed some big stations like Gadag, Hubli, Dharwar.
By the way, we brought our own food and had that for dinner on the 4th, breakfast on the 5th. We did not order any food on the train.I just don't like that pre-packed food onthose trains. After passing Guntakal, we realized that their was no restaurant bogie any longer. They detatched it, I don't know why.
A fellow passenger by name Vinayak, gave us a lot of information about the Mahalakshmi Mandir, names of hotels to stay, how much the Auto rickshaw would charge and so on. Finally we reached Kolhapur and got a room at Subraya hotel which was very close to the bus station. After bathing and changing, we went to have Mahalaksmi's darsan. It was a wonderful feeling. Had dinner in the restaurant attached to the hotel(got Andhra food) and rested well. More on Mahalakshmi Temple later. From the hotel to the Temple, the auto charges were 20 rupees. That being a Thursday, Rao and I recited 108 names of Sathya Sai Baba and Nirmala listened. Went to bed happy and content.
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