En Route to Ahmedabad, Gujurat, India – We both awoke at 4:30 a.m. due to the clambouring, bumping and talking of the Indians in the compartments on either side of ours. Laid in bed for a few hours until the sun came up, then we got up when we heard the calls of “chai” echoing down the corridor of our carriage.
We raised the window facing the corridor and passed our cups through the bars to the chai man. The bars on the window to the hallway not only kept us in our cell, but they served as a beautiful protective measure against the beggars and peddlers we didn’t want to deal with. The jayfay visited shortly after tea, so I resigned myself to reading Alice in Wonderland and standing in the doorway of our carriage watching the world go by.