Delhi is how far away!!!???

36 hours. Yes folks, you read it correctly. It takes 36 hours by TRAIN to get to Delhi from Bangalore. For you clever people who thoroughly research your travels, you probably already knew that. But Danika and I were under the distinct impression that you could get anywhere in India in like 6 hours. Inspite of knowing this we booked a train to Delhi anyways (we're leaving tomorrow night!) they've promised us an A/C sleeper, but we'll see about the A/C and we'll see about the sleep. I've learned among other things, that things are never quite how they are described by the Indians. "Luxury", "delux" and "fancy" have all taken on completely alternative meanings for me since i've been here. Hence my cynicism about this train ride. In any case, we have decided to visit Delhi, Agra, Darjeeling and Calcutta (I refuse to use the new Indianized names because they just sound bad). And out of the 10 days we will be away from Bangalore, 5 of those days will be spent on trains and buses just getting from one place to another. Flying around India is incredibly expensive, which is both surprising and annoying since the quality of airline service is dismal and the demand is really high. And apparently the rail system in India is one of the best, minus the fact the toilets empty onto the tracks. They also say the mailpost system is top notch, but out of the 10 letters I have mailed to Toronto, only 3 have arrived, and one of them was torn in half and placed in a plastic bag saying "we regret the incovenience", so we'll just have to wait and see. But I will say that the trains are very smooth, and it's a no-brainer compared to taking chartered buses with crazy drivers. It's definitely safer to travel by train.
What will we do for 36 hours? Well, Danika and I are HUGE fans of playing war (so is Paul, he just doesn't know it yet!). I was also gifted a very apt book called "Chindia", about the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies, from my capitalist-loving boyfriend, (thank you Ray). And if all else fails I have a healthy stash of sleeping pills to snore the time away!