Runaway Train!

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08.10.05
Got up, showered and packed our bags ready to check out of our lovely hotel. Had loads of time to kill as our train wasn't until 6pm, so we looked around the shops the best we could with our huge rucksacks on! Both looking forward to Chang Mai tomorrow just need to get through the 12hr train journey first tonight :o/

09.10.05
Well we're at Chang Mai after the worst train journey ever!!! It was all going well at first, got on the train and were both impressed as we had loads of room and even a bed each! 2hrs later the train guard made up the beds so we could try and get some sleep-thats when it all started-the train creaked so much, swayed from side to side nearly chucking us out of bed, and to top it off we were sat next to the automatic door which slammed open and shut if anyone so much as breathed!
Finally we somehow managed to fall asleep, until we woke up and realised the train wasn't actually moving. A few others were awake so we glanced at our watch, it was 5:15am-we were due in at 6 so we thought we were early-hurray-but NO! We asked a Canadian girl if we were here and she said we'd been stopped for about 4hrs (which explains how we managed to get some sleep).
With that a Thai girl came up to us and said everyone had to get off, she said follow her and she'd help us. We grabbed our stuff and got off, walking across about 4 tracks to get to the platform! It was pitch black and we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the station was dark and dingy and full of mosquitos!
All the announcements were in Thai so the Thai girl kindly translated everything, she said we were 5hrs away from Chang Mai and that a bus was coming to get us. Apparently a cargo train had de-railed in front of ours (and the scary thing is it happens all the time)!
We packed our stuff together with the Canadians and waited and waited and waited...the Thai girl came over and offered us some very strong black coffee-no thanks we said, but she said 'you must, you must, we sit here for 5hrs til bus comes then 5 more hrs on bus!!!!!'
Oh my god...it was the longest night ever, what was supposed to take 12hrs took 21hrs-we were put off trains for life!
So eventually we got to our guesthouse-Garden View-it was clean and friendly which was perfect as we literally spent the rest of the day recovering from our journey!

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