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i think i'm ready for india now.
7 hours in the 3rd-class coach of a rapid train in mid-day, high summer heat, and you start to doubt your own hygiene.

the americans i was eavesdropping on yesterday said it was the hottest part of summer here in thailand.
and looking desultorily out the train window now, i see it's true. the plains outside are barren and stubbly at best, cracked at worst. guess the people in the train aren't the only ones the heat got to.

the ride is oppressive, so rather than meaure time by endless minutes, i measure passage by the repetition of visual themes.
i know a train station's coming once i see a huge, gold or red wat.
at every other hill, a giant Buddha emerges on the rise.
vendors walk through the aisles in varying combinations of the same elements - larg woman with iced drinks, thin man with rice meals, old woman with dried fish, male child with fruits. (To vary: large woman with fruits, old woman with iced drinks, thin man with fish, etc...)

limestone cliffs break the monotony sometimes, a lone motorcyclist zooming through a plain of green grass, birds swooping across the sky, the occassional idling herd of anorexic cows. but for the most part, the train just keeps dragging itself through the parched land, its engines going hmm-mooo, hmm-mooo.
too.