The Last Two Train Rides

November 29 and 30, 2008

We had another night train from Delhi to Udiapur.  This was by far the worst train ride of India.  Thank God that I have no more train rides left.  I don’t even want to look at another train ever again.  We were in the regular sleeper class.  Basically, its dirty, smelly, you don’t get blankets and the windows refuse to close all the way so you freeze your butt off all night long and all the while you’re being stared by random people.  It was a miserable night.  It started off terrible.  There was this horrible, pushy, rude Indian man who was being such a jerk to me.  I felt like I might just lose it.  In other words, “I was going to kick some ass and take some names.”  Fortunately, for this particular man, I held it together and I didn’t have to see him again.  Some people in this world are so rude and I really can’t figure out why.  After a freezing cold, sleepless night we arrived in Udiapur.  The hotel where we are staying is probably the nicest place that we have been to so far.  There’s hot water, western toilets, soft beds and even a small TV in every room.  It is so amazing.  It feels so nice to be at this place.  I know that I will be able to get a lot of good rest here and that makes me so happy.

We began our Environment course today.  There’s a lot to learn about in the next 6 days but I think that it will be really cool to learn about it all.  We’ve been living in this environment for 3 months now and it will be nice to finally put some things together.  There’s so much that I want to know about the environment here in India.  Also, the people who are coordinating this course are Indian Hippies.  Which is really cool.  They seem so nice and 2 of them grew up in the United States so they understand us more than most of the other people that we have met.  We went over a brief schedule of what we will be doing over the next few days and it all sounds really awesome.  I can’t wait to get started.