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Wow, 19 hours on a train? What are you thinkin? THats prolyl what you are thinking at this point. But 19 hours on a train is not like 19 hours anywhere else. We entrained at 1:30 am and groggily made our way to our berths. I took the top bunk and put all my stuff and me up on the bed. It wasnt the most comfortable situation, but it worked and I fell deep asleep. They had to wake me up to give me blankets. I eventually woke up after hours of restless sleep at 9 am. We had a breakfast of kabobs on the train and then I promptly went back to sleep. I woke again to have a lunch of daal, rice, roti and something very very liquidy which I poured all over my pants. Bye bye light colored shorts (a story for another day).
When I woke after my afternoon nap Nabil and I engaged in a fascinating discussion with one of the other inhabitants of our sleeping room thingy. It turns out that he is a captain in the Indian Army and has spent a while stationed in Kashmir. When Pakistan was breaking away from India, the king of Kashmir was given the choice of whether to join India or stay independent. He chose keeping his kingdom independent, and then the Pakistani army invaded. The Indian army countered and pushed the Pakistani army back. Currently India controls 50%, Pakistan 40%, and China 10%. According to the guy, the situation in Indian Kashmir is much better than that in the Pakistani part, though this is coming from a guy in the Indian army.
As for the Americans in Iraq, the Indians in Kashmir have to deal with an insurgency of Pakistani suicide-bombers and others. The Indians have been dealing with insurgencies for centuries and he proudly told us that the American Army sends its officers to the Indian Military Academy to learn counter-insurgency tactics. He said the US is just slowly understanding how to deal with insurgencies, but said they are not doing a good job of applying WHAM (winning hearts and minds). To him they are being more sucessful in Kashmir, through massive infrastructure investment and other projects.
He is from Punjab, where everyone is pretty much Sikh, and he is as well. At first I didnt think he was, but then he explained that only 10% (those who are baptized) wear turbans and have long beards.
In the evening we arrived in Jalgaon, and dropped our bags at our hotel. We went for dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel as suggested by our hotel manager. Our waiter was a West Bengali who reminded me of George's Dad. He was really funny and asked us to send him an all-metal wine bottle opener and a magazine, which we plan on doing when we return. I had a chicken pepper kabob that was of the same delicious style as the chicken I had on Cox's Bazaar. mmm.... After dinner I was the main course for the mosquitoes.
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Spotswood
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Ah, yet more proof that my family is closely related to families in the Far East!