9/20    dear motd travel agent,
        My company is sending me to India for a few weeks in November. I will
        be in Bangalore but I plan to take weekends and some extra time off
        to do sightseeing. I've never been to India before and would love to
        hear any advice. Specifically I'm wondering if it's realistic to
        expect to be able to use the weekends to do sightseeing by taking
        flights within the country to see specific areas or if that's too
        crazy / wasteful.
        \- if you ask on the wall, i may be able to give you some help. --psb
           \_ Can't you just respond? There's a reason why motd works better
              \- this is simpler to answer in a two way conversation.
                 otherwise you waste time on paths that may be subject
                 to early pruning.
                 \_ Hahahaha, "path" and "early pruning", this is so
                    CS talk and so funny in this context..
        \_ I can tell you that India is a huge country, and that flying
           between big cities isn't something that can easily be done in a
           weekend without you tiring yourself out after one trip. Try
           taking some extended time off (~5 days) to be able to spend
           some time once you're in the new city. Otherwise, with the
           hectic hell that is the airport in india, you will not want
           to fly again. BTW, go with Jet Air if you fly.
           \- india is a big country by rail but not by plane. when it
              comes to travel, india offers a very pure choice between
              time an money. in general i would recemmend try to do a
              longer trip maybe at the end of your trip rather than try
              to do weekend stuff. although a weekend trip to kerela might
              be doable. but you have to pick whether you want to see
              ancient monumuents, mountains, relax at a beach resort etc.
        \_ Air travel is not exactly easy in India. Unless you are prepared
           to deal with flight cancelation and getting stranded, I would
           recommend that you stick to either bus tours or trains from
           B'lore. A day/weekend trip that is pretty safe is to travel
           to Mysore. It is about a 2 hr train ride and there are many
           trains each day.
           Mysore has some nice palaces and temples that you can visit.
           There is also KRS dam w/ fountains and a garden that is nice.
           Mysore is pretty laid back and should be safe for english only
           tourists. If you have some extra cash, you might be able to
           stay at the Laitha Mahal Palace for a couple of days.
           I agree w/ psb that a weekend trip to Kerela might be doable,
           but seeing as the train ride is nearly 1 day from B'lore it
           will be cutting it close. You might be able to fly to Cochin
           but that will be expensive and you should probably have a
           backup plan b/c there are only like 1 or 2 flights from B'lore
           to Cochin every day and the flights get canceled frequently.
           \- i suspect locals can tell you a reliable way to get to
              cochin etc. in my experience india guide books are often
              out of date or giving non-optimal advice. there are a lot
              of non-intuitive things about india travel that are
              "common knowledge" among locals. for example if you want
              to get from Kolkata to Varanasi, it is vastly superior to
              take the Howrah - Mughal Sarai Junction train than to take
              the direct train to Varanasi Cantonment. etc. more in mail.
              \- according to my india rail guide the Kaveri Express
                 leaves B'lore around 7am gets to Mysore around 10ish
                 and leave Mysore around 6pm to return to B'lore by ~9,
                 so that may be a easy weekend, but locals can tell you if
                 it would be smarter to hire a car if you have 2-4 people
                 in your tour party. it is about 400mi to cochin and the
                 b'lore - kanyakumai express [sic] goes via ernakulam but
                 i am not sure if there is a better option. unless you
                 count the really big destinations in india, india travel
                 is often about the  characters you meet on the journey
                 and the "character building" that happens rather where
                 you are going. i've always been surpised to hear people
                 liked kolkata because there isnt much to see there and
                 i am not sure what is interesting about the place if you
                 dont speak bengali.