Sleeping All the Way: Train Ride to Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai was the next stop on our trip and we decided to take a train there both as a new experience and to save on one night’s accommodation.  When we arrived at Hualomphong train station to purchase tickets for 9/16/13, we were promptly informed that they were starting approximately a month’s worth of construction on a section of the track leading to Chiang Mai that very day.  We could, instead, purchase a train ticket part way, then take a bus the rest of the way.  I glanced over at RIck and could tell he was as hesitant as me.  Did we really want to be looking for a bus at some godawful hour in the early morning in an unknown city?  And what if we missed the connection?  We were prepared to deal with whatever circumstances our adventure might throw at us, but why seek out difficult unneeded circumstances?  Instead, we decided to check out half a day earlier and take the 9/15 train instead, the last one direct to Chiang Mai, one of the benefits of remaining as flexible as possible when it comes to our schedule. 

After being thoroughly confused on the numbering of train cars (the number was posted on the side all along, duh…), we settled in our train compartment at around 7pm with our hoard of 7-11-procured snacks.  Older women in loose beige uniforms and black waist-braces bustled through the narrow aisle of our 2nd class sleeper car lugging baskets filled with chip bags and soda bottles for sale.  Another woman with short neat bobbed hair stopped at each compartment waving a colorful brochure and asking whether we’d like to order sets of hot food.  We declined dinner but splurged on breakfast for the next day. 

Just as we were getting comfortable in our cushy seats, a rather fit conductor came through briskly setting up the sleeper units.  Here’s an example of what he did, from the Seat 61 website:

Rick excused himself to the bathroom and came back looking green around the edges.  "Bathroom gross?" I asked.  He explained his disgust and, later, when I went myself, I could see he told the unvarnished truth.  The toilet had no plumbing, nor seat.  When I looked down, I could see the alternating lines of the train tracks slicing past underneath me.  The roll of toilet paper was damp and a white medium-sized moth fluttered away when I picked it up.  A cockroach scurried by when I opened the bathroom door. 

led

We pulled the curtains mostly closed around the bottom bunk and it felt as if we were camping again, huddled in a small enclosed tent, the night fallen upon us.  Except our tent kept bumping up and down interrupted by the occasional jerking stop.  I scarfed down my pre-peeled pomelo slices for dinner and we chattered like schoolgirls until we found ourselves nodding off.  As much as we would’ve preferred staying together that night, the combination of my abundant hips and our two bulging backpacks negated any idea of the both of us fitting in the one narrow sleeper with any semblance of comfort.  Rick clambered up the narrow metal ladder and I curled around our packs, falling asleep almost immediately. 

I awoke to my luggage falling with a large smack to the train floor.  After clambering out and pulling it back into place, I could only sleep in fits and starts, so eventually gave up in exchange for watching the dawn turn the landscape outside from inky shadows to a lush green paradise. 

There’s such depth in the scenery on the way to Chiang Mai, as if an artist layered hundreds of intricate paper cut-outs on top of each other.  Blurs of passing trees not more than 10 feet away dotted with purple and red flowers slid by us, every so often breaking into a window onto breathtaking vistas of mountains and verdant quilts of farmland. 

Rick awoke about an hour after me, climbing back down to join me in a breakfast of tomato sandwiches and fries.  Around 9am, the conductor returned and we squeezed into the aisle as he efficiently bundled up our pillows, blankets, and bedsheets, converting the beds back into seats.  I expected us to arrive around 11am as we’d left about an hour late, but as 11am came and went, the scenery lost its luster and all I could think was the same plaintive cry all children crammed into cars for long road trips make, "Are we there yet?"  Another hour passed and still we kept rumbling along the tracks. 

Finally at around 1pm, the conductor roused everyone and there was a mad scramble for the exit.  RIck pulled out his camera and snapped a photo of me, still unsteady on my feet, in front of the Chiang Mai sign.