Day 155 - Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

We rode the train. We have been riding the train since 3 PM yesterday. We will be riding the train until 7AM tomorrow. I am tearing through my trashy novels, and Cz is doing the same.

Indian culture does not place value on child-development in the same way as the West. As a consequence, children on trains are not provided with toys, books, games, crayons, or entertainment of any sort. The children on this train, being children from wealthy families were all somewhat spoiled. No toys plus spoiled children equals high-decible travel.

One of our immediate carriage-mates was a young Indian woman who had been born in the US, but who chose to move back to India. She had interesting stories, but she really grated on my nerves. Basically, she claimed a free-wheeling lifestyle, travelling the world, making a living by purchasing goods in India, and then selling them on the Italian music festival scene. There was more to it than that, but long and short of it is, she claimed to be a free-spirit bum, but her lifestyle was only possible because her family was incredibly wealthy and she has no bills (lives at home, family pays for everything, Italian boyfriend pays for everything when they are in Italy). This in itself would be annoying, but not terribly so, except that she acted with such a sense of entitlement, and was so horrid to the sweepers that sometimes passed through the car (children that clean the carriage floor, then beg for food or small change) - her level of hypocrisy was sort of astounding. Luckily (for me anyway), she had a cold and spent much of the ride sleeping, so I didn't have to talk to her too much.

Even so, the train is relatively comfortable, and I have enough books to keep me busy. It will be strange returning home where there is virtually no long-distance public transportation, comfortable or otherwise.