Rail Travel 12.04.10

We are travelling, in two sprints, along the rail lines in Thailand, on our trip from Surat Thani to Bangkok at night and thence to Aranya Prathet which sits on the Thai-Cambodia border. The first train we booked was a sleeper, second-class, which we were told by many travellers, was a very satisfactory experience. While it was significantly better than the Vietnamese variety it was somewhat less than luxe. The linens were clean and the car quite well maintained so I should have nothing to complain about. But then I wouldn’t be me would I? The coaches seem to date back to the sixties; white-grey arborite tables and vinyl tile on the floors, square chrome legs and supports custom-designed to bark the sturdiest shin. Surfaces have been scoured, cleaned and re-cleaned until the black substrate is revealed – so while they are clean they appear quite dirty.

The night was reasonably uneventful. I took the smaller, upper bunk, hoping to be mistaken for a mensch and looking to earn brownie points or Karma. There are stiff rubberized canvas curtains that shield each occupant from the thirty or so others that share the coach in common. Please God let it be Sophie who snores loudly tonight. Note to self: upper berth’s curtains don’t go all the way up to the ceiling to block the light from the 6000 watt fluorescent fixtures, so are ideal if one likes bagging z’s on tanning tables, otherwise just a tad too bright. I am not one of your seasoned railway sleeper specialists so, just an aside to others who probably know better, when sleepers are arranged with human head to toe aligned with the length of the coach the rocking motion of the train is much more intense than when they are arranged perpendicular to the rails. I only mention this because I had noted the vertical straps attached from ceiling to bases of bed to prevent one’s rolling out during the night and smacking down a good 6 or 7 feet later onto hard floor. At the time I thought it highly unlikely that those straps would be necessary but a night at sea on the sleeper convinced me otherwise. Not recommended to those with stomach motility issues.

In the morning we woke around 6 or so and felt restless, we’d been in bunk since about 9 the night before. Soph suggested that we walk up to the dining car. Again, several people we have met in our travels said they food weas good and cheap. We had visions, or at least I did, of cutlery and china, maybe not Spode, but, you know, plates and such.

The trek was like changing channels near the mystery/horror/sci-fi region of cableville. Each car had a different and surprising appearance. We first went through first-class sleeper, which appeared to have more linen though I couldn’t really see much difference. It felt brighter and cooler in that car – I froze my ass off in ours so no points scored. Those lazy first classers were barely stirring - upper class twits to a man I say. Rubbing their eyes and making big yawning noises, blinking at the interlopers who should have had more sense and climbed alongside the outside of the car rather than disturbing them. Picture them with colourful sleeping masks with cute animals stitched into them.

We crossed the treacherous funhouse threshold to the next car, straight into a roaring, clattering Sahara. The air was stiflingly hot even though the windows were open – I forgot to check if the glass was tempered to be able to resist the blast-furnace heat. The chairs were arranged airplane style, in rows facing backwards at the rear end, then reversing to forward. The occupants had spent the entire night sitting (basting) in naugahyde recliners, no drip-pans Richard. They looked absolutely spent; with a febrile sheen to their skin - it felt like walking into a cholera ward. Many wore sunglasses because it was so bright – there were no curtains nor berths to block the blaring morning sun that shone horizontally through the car like some infinitely long explosion – which I guess it is in fact. Some clients looked at us curiously; probably few farang venture this far into the heart of darkness.

When we arrived at the dining car it initially seemed like a cruel joke. The passage seemed blocked by a wall, but it was the kitchen taking the lion’s share of the car, a narrow corridor led around a blind corner to our Eden. Well, not precisely the Biblical description; a couple of sweat-stained officers are sitting, smoking cheroots or Marlboros. One is talking in a voice so loud it would shake the windows if they weren’t already banging back and forth from the rough rails. The aforementioned arborite tables are fastened to one wall. The walls are that horrendous green that is the universal symbol for vomit. It’s the green one sometimes sees just before blacking out. We modified our imaginary order of steaming porridge or noodle soup to coffee served in mismatched chipped mugs. Still, Marj would call that an adventure.

And so we returned to our sleeper car for a few more hours before Bangkok. The early morning mists were long ago burnt off and the fields were grey and dry though everywhere the trees bore verdant foliage: palms and banana trees, jackfruit, mango and many deciduous types that seem to be cultivated in vast tracts, pin-straight and limbless for perhaps 25 feet, they stand, ordered like soldiers – a dense clump of green rests like a bearskin cap at their crests. Rainy season is still a month or so off I believe so this is the driest season and the general appearance can be summed up in one word, dusty.