- Everyone kept telling me that "you can't travel today cos of the lections" this was crap of course.There must have been some panic story on TV about transport being all taken up for elections. Actually where I was I saw that transport seemed to be at 70% of normal levels.
- but one week late the Guwahati paper had this picture
buses being requisitioned for the election causes normal buses to be super crowded

- Anyway since there was a train station in Badarpur I decided to try the train first and there was a Silchar train waiting.

- I arrived in Silchar expecting the town to be busy with the Assamese Bihu Festival ..but even though it's Assam the people all told me "we are all Bengalis here". They told me everything was closed on account of it being election day.. but I think it was more likely that everyone was still hung over as the previous night had been Bengali New Year

- So in Silchar was deserted, hot and dirty compared to the more pleasant hill towns so I set off to find the old palace as that wouldn't be closed.

- I set off along a road marked Khasapur .. I did worry about the name being different , but in India the English writing of place names often varies. All day i was passing places with crowds queuing outside polling stations. The taxi dropped me when it turned right towards the airport. Eventually a journalist Ponkaj Sharma from a Manipur language newspaper gave me a lift ...when we arrived it turned out Khaspur was a different place to Khasapur - I should have been on the airport road.

- So I was already late .. a passenger was over friendly I wanted to stay in the taxi, but he insisted I must visit his fathers shop first "then we can take my fathers car" " The guy said he was Christian , but smelled of drink", then it got worse his fatheris Muslim so the son had been lying (the sons of Muslims cannot be Christians" , there was no car and it was almost4.30 eventually he took me to a taxi whichwanted 300Rp.. so ijustran off to walk ... I got a ride from a teacheron a motorbike ..he said i would have to walk 2Km down a lane to reach the ruins ... butas I got near 1Km locals didn't recognize the word Khaspur... there seems to be such a cultural difference : "people seemed stupid ", I was just about to draw a picture which would have madethe situation clear when one guy said "ah" and directed me off the path then boys led me across a river and said it's 3.5 Km over there what I was 1KM away and now you tell me it's 3.5KM the other way ? ... I should have used the word Raj Bari. I got to a road and then a sign which directed me along a lane back to where I had almost been .. so it was dark before I got there and had to turn back ...India had beaten me Today

- Back in the small town .. the taxi drivers wanted a ridiculous price for the 11KM to Silchar (on account of the election) so I set off to walk.. I was sick of locals giing me bullshit, but then a different kind of Bengali came along. MINTU HUSSEIN choudry a cafe owner took me on his motorbike to town ..I would have made it walking but I was grateful for the lift.

- quite good assam tourist info site allaboutassam.com

- Friday Plan to trael to the Mizoram border to check out Mizo culture