A Day with Joy, Trains

March 24, 2014:

Yesterday was our last with a driver as we had to catch a train for Mumbai at 5:45pm. Joy (the artist is always right) decided we should go to a craft village a short way out of Udaipur. Unfortunately it wasn't open for an hour or so, so she decided we would just drive until we found a village. It wasn't long before we were walking the streets/lanes of a village called Badi, where few tourists go. She eventually sits down to sketch and I leave her to walk around and talk to people. I always come back just to make that things are ok and it is easy to find her, as these pictures show.

Find a crowd and there's Joy!

She is very popular with the kids and does many sketches of them, giving them to them after.

But she is popular with all ages as this man's happy smile at a photo of him, shows!

We are on the train as I write this and I have discovered something new about Indian train travel. This trip was organized for us by a tour place in Delhi (never again) and it is 1st class, but not air conditioned. The lack of AC doesn't bother us that much as we are getting used to 30+ temperatures. But we were assigned a compartment designed for four people and there was no one assigned the other two seats.

We settled in with our many bags, but left the door open to see what was going on across the hall. Shortly,  a young guy came in and put down the upper bunk ( I had just put it up) and followed by his woman an a baby settled in. Soon another young guy joined him on the upper bunk and they talked loudly together. Then another man, who had a physical disability also joined us, so that we had 6 people and a baby in a compartment for 4. Also none of these had paid for first class, some claiming to be staff. The conductor came and checked my passport to ensure that I was in the right place, but the other four were ignored. Fortunately, they all left at fairly early stops and the door has been locked ever since. It appears that anyone can get on the train and grab a seat in first class without paying, or without paying the normal people?

Jim