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Published: April 21st 2008
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Well I am back from a 10 day holiday to the more north region of Thailand. It went quite a bit differently than I expected but good in a unique way.
As I mentioned last time you heard from me, we were invited by our friend Rhota to go to Chiang Mai with him. He is on his summer school break and was working in Muaklek the town that Mission College (MC) is located in but has been going to school up north and this was his very favorite area. He promised to show us all over and what better way to see the country than with someone who knows. That was almost 2 weeks ago.
Our journey started out like all of my trips, frantic. We left MC thinking we were late, but we were well behaved and rode 2 people to a motorbike like we were supposed to. As we raced into town to get to our train on time, who should appear but the police who needed some money for the upcoming holiday. They pointed us to the police station which we were becoming quite familiar with and we paid our fine of about $6. We were worrying
about making the train and were quite eager to part with our money and get going but of course the police were trying to be subtle about it and took much longer than we had. Fortunately we met some other students there who agreed to take our other motorcycle back to school with them, something we had been working out how to do. It all ended well and we raced up to the train station just in time to find out that we had gotten our time switched around and in fact had another hour.
We decided to go by train partly because I thought it would be a good way to see the countryside and partly because it was quite cheap, only $12 each way for a 14 hour journey. There were 4 of us and Tom and I were footing the bill, additionally transportation was all clogged up because all of Thailand was preparing for the holiday. Tourists don't really take the train and if they do they stay in sleeper cars or in the air conditioned 1st class. Unfortunately we were in 2nd class which consisted of a 70's era vinyl seat that may or may
not be in a permanently reclining position. 2nd class also afforded a swiveling fan ceiling fan that would come around every minute or so to bring me back out of the state of heat coma that I kept slipping into. The fans matched the railway cars, both were from the 1920's. Our cars were made of wood that was disguised on the exterior by many coats of fiberglass and paint to look the part of a safe and modern train. Actually we were just lucky to have seats we had expected the train to be full and that we would be stuck standing the entire way but we got the last 4 seats (supposedly).
Our first train connected to Ayuttaya the ancient capital of Thailand. Rhotas family lived here and we were going to spend the day with them. This first train we were 3rd class and sat on the original wood bench seats, I am glad that only last an hour. The train here operates much as they did back in the day. The engines are the old diesels, they still use drivers, conductors, engineers, flag and whistle signals, etc. There are still actual people working the train
stations. By the side of the tracks I noticed many cables suspended on small pulleys. These run great distances and are used to manually operate rail switches, road crossings, signs and lights. It is quite fascinating to watch it all work. The windows pull all the way down and you can put as much of yourself out of them as you dare. Also walking between train cars you have the open doors and can stand on the steps outside of the train and swing around on the hand hold, pretty much whatever you want to do. The toilet is quite another story. It is the traditional Asian squat toilet which is strange enough for a westerner to use in a stationary position but you can imagine using it while the train pitches and bumps around, much like playing darts... sorry sorry that was bad but I just can't help it. One more thing, it is unprofessional to use said toilet while the train is at a station because, you guessed it, the toilet empties onto the tracks.
Food concession is another interesting thing about the train. The train does have a dinning car which consiss of a few tables and
a dirty kitchen. They have people who will go up and down the train offering this food but in true Thai entrepreneurial fashion, they allow privateers to operate to. People make their living often by boarding the train in the morning and walking up and down selling anything from food and beverage to crafts like hammocks. It is kind of fun to watch them battle their way up and down the train, this applies mostly to the short runs but there are some beverage people who go along on the long runs as well.
We arrived in Ayuttaya and went to Rhotas parents house, quite different from what I was expecting. During this time I learned some background. His family is actually from the US both having gone to WW College and his mother being from WW. Some of you would know them. They came here 10 years ago fresh out of college and newly married. They went to Cambodia first and worked as missionaries. She started doing micro loans and helping beggars get a better livelyhood. Rhota was an orphan in Cambodia and they took him in although they were never allowed to adopt him. They had to
leave after 5 years during a war and he had to stay behind with another family and his brother through that bunch also goes to College here. The family came back to Thailand next time and the father works as director for Buddhist studies for AFM trying to figure out ways make sense of Christianity to Buddhists. They live in the country in an amazing traditional Thai house all made of teak wood. It is right along a canal, we had a good dinner and hung out with the 3 children swimming and walking, talking, playing ping pong, etc. Trying to get over my fear of swimming here I thought to myself, oh surely if they swim in this there must not be snakes so I assured myself by asking. They replied "Oh yea there are snakes in there and iguanas to but they have never bothered us". Not the answer I was looking for but if they can do it I can do it and we had a great time swimming in the heat of the day.
We had hoped to see the ancient capital but other than looking in the dark while on the way to the train
station we didn't get to see anything. We boarded at 2AM and collapsed on the seats sleeping off and on until we arrived almost 14 hours later. It was actually a wonderful experience, I absolutely love the train and we saw all kinds of jungle, rice fields, sleepy country train stations along the way. The train has a way of rocking you to sleep although it was anything from quiet. I would wake up at regular intervals as it would scream over metal bridges or violently shake over bumpy sections. We arrived in one piece mid-day on Wednesday and found our way to a very nice hostel in the middle of town.
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Brenda
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Colorful descriptions and facinating journey.
This is exciting Drew, your narration make me feel like I'm seeing everything, well not maybe the darts! I love your sense of humor and adventure. Can't wait for the next installment.