Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
A good supply of food and beverages we climb onto what's going to be our hotel on a track for the night. Kitima Lin (our ticket agent) has come through, we have our own little cabin with two sets of bunk beds. It's not the same as what I'd seen on the Internet the beds are permanently fixed in position rather than converted from the seating, but its better, we have loads of room, our own little private space and just as importantly room to store our baggage safely! The train pulls away almost an hour late, the journey is approx 435 miles and should take just over 14 hours but given my research I'm not convinced and expect it to be longer.
Security on the train is evident from the minute we board, we have a security man assigned to the carriage along with a lady who insists on asking whether we want food or drink every five minutes, I suppose it is her living! To the left of us are two females and to the right a large group of people (at least 10) from the Czech Republic who look half cut when they board, have a huge amount of KFC bargain buckets with them and proceed to be extremely loud!
The only down side about the train has to be the toilets and this isn't us being fussy, lets say if you're partial to the smell of ammonia then this is for you, I have never smelt anything this bad in my life. The smell is unbearable and burns your nostrils but a great test of whether you can hold your breath long enough to finish, certainly not for the faint hearted!
We spend the next few hours chatting and attempt to watch a film however, by 11pm Ashley is swapping Whisky samples with the Czech group and he and Lee end up joining them drinking plum vodka into the small hours while me and Madison head to bed.
After quite a cold night (the air con blew very cold and the attendant forgetting to give us blankets) and a trip to the toilet from hell I was wide awake by 6.30am watching as the train slowly wound its way towards northern Thailand. There were times it went very slow over some very dodgy looking bridges with sheer drops and by 7am the drink and food lady was back this time shouting "coffee" every five minutes though it did little to wake the rest of my sleeping, hungover cabin for at least another hour! There was one point of terror when the train was coming to a stop at a station (I have no idea why but it did it throughout the journey) and a pack of at least 10 wild dogs came out of nowhere chasing the train until it stopped proceeding to stand on the embankment barking and pacing. I honestly thought there was a chance they could get onto the train and believe me they looked like they hadn't had a good feed ever!
Finally with Lee and Ashley, hangovers in tact and a bleary eyed Madison we rolled into Chiang Mai train station over two hours late but pleased with our sleeper train experience!
- comments