train to chiang mai

not a wireless network in sight. sunburned arms, neck and shoulders. fan oscillating, neighborhood bars clanging on poorly skinned drums. hair wet, hot showered for the first since yesterday morning. yesterday, saturday, it feels like a week ago. that day started with a hot shower and a cup of instant coffee, followed by a jaunt down to soi 11 for a coffee, croissant and a bowl of fruit for breakfast while i waited for the exchanges to open. after cashing a cashier’s checque, i got an hour long thai massage, where this girl pulled and prodded and twisted my poor body back into proper alignment. after checking out of the hotel, i chatted up Zennitt, my Nepalese friend who tried to sell me suits for a day or two until he got the hint. i then lugged my heavy pack to the metro station and on to Hua Lamphong Railway Station for the 2:30 to Chiang Mai, destroying all the work my lovely Thai woman had done to my back.



the train ride was my first ever, let alone in a sleeper to northern Thailand. i was expecting something worthy of a hogwart’s entrance, but for 700 baht, it was not bad. i sat in the train for the hour i had cushioned my arrival, watching monks and soldiers and a vendor poke at his bandaged lip. out train pushed off promptly, and we slowly clacked out way north, passing through bangkok’s outskirts and smaller surrounding cities, picking up more passengers as we went. i dozed off and on in the sunlight, while vendors walked up and down the aisle, shouting their wares. a little before sundown i made my way to the dining car, sitting down across from a single thai woman who smiled and offered me some of her meal. i picked my way back through the crowded cars, smiling people making way for me to clunk down the aisles. instead of going back to my seat, i sat in the open stairwell, overlooking the tracks below us. hypnotized, i sat there until we slowed for another station. returning to my car, no. 15, the attendant was pulling our seats into beds, whereupon i promptly climbed in, pulled the curtain, and despite our frequent stops, slept rather restfully until 5:30 am, when we pulled into Chaing Mai.