Our guide left us to our own devices today, so we jumped on a train that had only been in operation 2 weeks. That means the officials have only been employed a short time and are anxious to do things by the book, or perhaps haven't even read the book yet.
Anyway, in the crush and the rush, four of us didn't validate our tickets in the machine. So we were taken off the train, short of our destination. Actually, the four were taken off the train and, at first oblivious to what was happening, the rest of us luckily managed to also get off before it started moving again. Passports were looked at and fines were levied despite our attempts to play the "dumb foreigner" card, something I have reasonable experience doing. Hopefully our guide can convince the powers that be to be sensible.
