Trains

If you have not figured it out by now, we do not have a car. To get around town we either walk, take the bus (which we really don't like), or take a taxi. Since it usually costs around $1 USD to get anywhere by taxi, we take a taxi. I do not need the stress of being on the bus while everyone tries to touch AB, tells me that she is cold in the middle of the summer, or tries to sneak a photo with their cell phone camera. No thank you.

To travel to other cities we would love to just fly or hire a private car, but that is often out of our price range. So if we are traveling less than 1 hour by plane, we try to take the train. This country has some extremely nice trains. Some of them go up to 200 miles per hour, and have seats that you can spread out in and recline. However, these trains do not come through our city. Instead we take the slow train with all of the local people. If we are lucky we can get a "sleeper train." These trains have stacks of beds throughout the car, and if we are really lucky we can get a "soft sleeper" room that is private...well that we only have to share with a few other people. However, if traveling during the day, they assume that the bed is more like a bench that you have to share with everyone else in the cabin. This is considered first class for the slow trains.

I will spare the details of the bathroom, but just let your imagination run wild. It is a sqatty potty and it is very very bad.

We are very grateful for the train though. The train is the one form of transportation in this country that is always on time. It has a bathroom. We can get "first class" seats that somewhat shelter us from the masses of people, and it is not too expensive. We will always choose to take the train over the bus.

Below are a few photos from a recent train trip to and from visiting our friends.