Aurangabad, India

I woke up several times in the morning on the train to Manmad junction and after 09:00, the man in the bunk above me finally woke up and came down; we were thus able to stow his bunk against the wall and turn mine in to a sitting area; eventually there would be four of us crammed on to the seat, waiting for the train to arrive in Manmad. During the journey, the old man that had slept in the bunk above me bought me three small cups of chai; each time I told him I was okay and didn’t want any, but he insisted; so I drank up and thanked him. I spent most of the waking hours on the train staring outside the window, watching India pass me by; mostly we traveled through farm lands (there was much corn and cotton as well as a plethora of other staple and cash crops) and, as I noticed throughout much of India while traveling on train, there are many people who like to openly defecate next to the train tracks (they also use the toilets on the train while it is stopped at a station, leaving piles of feces on the tracks for all the waiting travelers to see and smell). Throughout my travels in India, I have seen men piss everywhere (they even whip their dicks out at the train station, on the platform’s edge, and piss right on the tracks), I have seen people openly defecate almost everywhere (children don’t care about privacy and will do it right next to a road or sidewalk, whereas adults will try to conceal themselves), I have observed erotic art adorning many temples (mostly in Khajuraho), and I know that India is renowned worldwide for creating the Kama Sutra; yet, despite all of this, films shown in India cannot contain full frontal nudity and the media in India goes in to an uproar when an actress shows too much cleavage at an event; this country is completely schizophrenic! Anyway, I also saw some other interesting things out my train window; such as a dog biting at the putrid meat underneath the hide of a dead cow next to the tracks (he was burying his face under the hide around the neck of the deceased beast) and water buffaloes with their horns painted orange, red, blue, or striped colors. After many hours on board the train, it finally arrived at Manmad Junction an hour late and I had to wait around for over two hours to catch my next train to Aurangabad. When that train finally did come, I found my coach and my bunk (it was an upper bunk, hooray!) and waited for the train to depart. For the most part, this train had very few passengers and I found the lack of noise and people very welcoming. In about two hours, the train reached the station (at nearly 23:00) and I found an auto rickshaw to take me to my hotel (that I booked prior to arrival); the auto rickshaw driver only charged me twenty rupees (very reasonable and about what the meter (which he is supposed to use!) would have charged me) and I think he charged me so little because he misunderstood when I told him to take me to the hotel, thinking I had not made a reservation and he would then be able to state that he brought me here and get kickbacks from the management; oh well, live and learn, but hopefully – for other travelers’ sakes – he won’t learn. Upon reaching the hotel, I paid the driver, checked in, and was shown to my room. I then went in to a deep sleep.