Only last Wednesday, I went to Ayutthaya from the same train station and I was unimpressed by the short travel. It is mostly because I noticed that windows are not clean enough to allow passengers to view surroundings outside and the coaches produce excessive noise. Incidentally, this route is the first in Thailand and so it's not surprising to see its current state after more than a hundred years of operation.
This time we are hoping that a repetition won't happen. We arrived at the station at 15 minutes before the scheduled departure. The Skytrain (Bangkok's version of the MTR and traverses within the busy Silom and Sukhumvit districts) connection with MRT (another counterpart of our subway system) helped us reach the train station on time.
As we arrived at Hualampong station the sound indoors is a mixture of human interaction, blaring announcements amid the diesel flavored airspace in this big enclosure. Trains are parked at the back of a giant image of the country's King and Queen.
The train we will be boarding is made in Korea and is in operation for about 15 years. We have a company of many European travelers (more than 60% of the passengers in our Car #3) as what I can observe from their languages. All of them are backpackers whose luggages occupy most of the space available for everyone. Since we have only Saturday and Sunday to worry, our bags could easily pass for a student's rather than travelers.
You know what is the worst part of the travel is? No, not the lack of space for our little bags nor the state of security (mind you, they have police officers patrolling the area all the time) or space available. It's the actual time the train left the station. It took two hours later before we formally left Bangkok. It's already 9:30pm and we didn't expect it to be that late. I am sure other passengers also have that in mind.
Shortly after the train assistant arranged our beds and placed fresh beddings, we decided to go to the canteen which is two cars behind our assigned seats and grab dinner. For Thai standards, the dinner which consisted of fried eggs, rice, bowl of soup and veggies is quite expensive at THB110. The canteen can accommodate about 20 people and by the time we settled in, it's almost full, with most other occupants enjoying their bottles of beer and sharing jokes.
By the time I got settled back to my bed (I wanted the top deck and got it) I realized I didn't bring a couple of shirts! I had to play tricks on my mind in remembering whether I placed the shirts in my bag or not. I confirmed I didn't get it after I brushed my teeth and settled back down to sleep. So I resolved quickly to buy Chiang Mai shirt(s) to get over this mishap.
Another dilemma I was facing is that the amount of memory left in my camera dwindle down to 35 shots. I guess I have to delete more old photos to accommodate new ones.
* To be continued.
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