The night train (that turned into night & day)

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Somehow we'd lost the key card for the hotel last night, and had to pay 500baht for another one. we'd also lost all sense of time, and this morning had missed our day trip to see the reclining Buddha. Oh well, we'd hopefully make up for this when we get back to Bangkok later in the trip. We extended our check out time so we didn't have to rush to get ready, and had a nice bowl of soup from the hotel restaurant to ease the hangover. We sat on some sofas in the hotel lobby waiting to meet the rest of the group at around 4pm ready to head to the train station.

We walked the short distance across the road to the station and even then was sweating at having to carry my bags and wrestle with the traffic and humidity. The station was quite big, and people were sat looking as forlorn and lost as they do in kings cross on a Friday evening. We boarded our sleeper train to Chaing Mai, not before getting a KFC- I had broken my no fast food rule already, but hey, after the night we'd had and the hangover That ensued after it, I didnt care.
We sat and chatted and read for a bit before the steward made up the bunk in a super fast time and we fell asleep for a few hours. I don't know who woke up first, but it was a little after midnight and Sam and I were both stirring. The stewards were sitting at the end of the carriage chatting hastily in high pitched almost songlike Thai- not the best noise to try and sleep through! Coupled with that was the smell from the toilets which was less than fragrant and wafted past every now and again. We decided to sit and eat some of the stuff we'd bought from the 7/11 shop in Bang

falling go sleep as the train rolled on accompanied by a rain storm, chugging slowly up to the north of Thailand .

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