Right we could do this, we were being positive, we were going to do a night train all by ourselves, not as part of a group. To be honest, Bee from the Smile hostel had organised it all, train tickets, a shuttle bus from train stop to ferry and a ferry ticket. She talked us through the whole procedure, times, what to look for at the shuttle stop, and I even asked her what the stop was before our final stop. My main worry was sleeping in and missing our stop which would mean we would miss the shuttle bus and ferry.
Once packed we made a sad farewell to Bee, I wish she was coming with us and headed off with our rucksacks on our backs. First off all we had to catch the sky train to the main train station. This was the first time we had used this station and visions of India came into my head, cows, people on the floor, rats, chaos etc.This station was calm, clean, well organised waiting area and a help desk as you walked in , with a helpful person who pointed the direction and told us the platform. We had left in plenty of time so sat in the large waiting area and even treated ourselves to a KFC to see us through the night. David getting restless went exploring and to see where platform 4 was, he came back and said the train was already in and we could get on it. This was great because it meant we could get on leisurely, find our seats and put our bags away in a calm manner.
I humphed my big rucksack on my back, put my small bag on my front and walked towards the train, we were looking for coach 11. We walked down seeing the coaches and figured out that number 11 should be next but kept walking until we saw it written on the side, yep, there it was. So we kept going down to the next door and I got on, squeezing my bags through the doorway then turned into the narrow bit between the carriages to go back into number 11. The door was locked so I told David who was behind me that we would have to go back and he headed off, I turned in the small gap and got wedged! I couldn't move and David had disappeared off into the distance, I wiggled and squirmed and eventually managed to get my small bag off which released me from my trap, at this point David returned with a quizzical look on his face, wondering where I was.
We found our seats easy and they were so roomy and comfy that we immediately felt happier about this night train. What did confuse us was that our seats were seats not beds like on the Indian train, so curious as ever I set about fiddling and realised bits slotted out and slid together to create the lower bed while the upper bunk was stored up like the storage things on an aeroplane and dropped down when needed. As I fiddled a man came who was going to be in the bunk above me, he was from Thailand and was to prove helpful for translating things as the journey continued, because he turned up I stopped fiddling but couldn't slot the base of my seat back in properly but thought it wouldn't
matter as my sitting on it would keep it still and steady. So I was sat on one seat facing him and he was on the other seat facing me, both seats would collapse to become my bed.
David meanwhile fiddled with his seats and made his bed, which really he shouldn't have done because that was a job for the bed man who made the beds! Chuffed with his handiwork David relaxed with a celebratory bottle of coke.
There are only two layers of bed on this train, not three like the Indian train so there was room to sit up on your seat even if the person above was sleeping.
In this picture you can see the two seats facing each other , there were also curtains, which gave a bit of privacy. Eventually the train started and we moved off very slowly and then it chugged a bit and then there was a sharp judder and my seat with the wobbly bottom shot forward, nearly decapitating the Thai man at the knees, I slid it back, smiled weakly at him and the train chugged forward only to sudden jolt again this time I newly ended up on his lap. Again I slid it back, but the train kept jolting all over the place so I ended up bracing my leg up against the Thai man's seat which luckily he found quite funny. David on the other hand was terrified he thought we were all doomed. Such a drama queen!
After about 15 minutes we had gone about the distance you could walk and then we shuddered all the way back to where we started, back to platform 4. The guards were walking up and down the carriages briskly so the Thai man asked what was going on and apparently they were going to get us a new engine as the other one was broken.
Once we were on our way the bed man came, he unlocks the upper bed and up there is the mattresses and bedding for the beds, he then makes your bed, first of all by dismantling and sorting seats and then he also puts the covers on for you and hangs up a curtain. Me and David were directly across from each other so could make faces at each other all night. By our calculations the train was suppose to arrive at 4:13am so we set the alarm for 3 am, but of course now the train was late and we didn't know if it would make up time or not. I struggled to go to sleep and was still awake at half ten, I must have nodded off then and was awake by midnight and that was me for the night, I couldn't sleep. With the curtains drawn I didn't know if David was awake or not but about half two he pulled the curtain open so I crept over to his bunk to hatch a plan. Cunning eh, he was going to go to the loo, I had already been and was not doing that again! No matter how nice trains are their loos are never pleasant. While there he would find a guard and ask them what time we were expecting to arrive at. Well, the doors at one end were tied up so we couldn't get out them and at the other end there was a sort of latch hook thing shutting the door and the guard was fast asleep between the two carriages, with the door in between us and him. that scuppered that plan, so we had the name of the station which was the one before ours and knew what time we should be there so kept a look out for that. What a carry on trying to catch the name of stations as we went past and sometimes we just stopped at random places for a while then would set off again! Then at about half five, the guard wandered up, David was asleep again, looked at me and David and said "Chumphon", I said "Yes", and he replied " Time to wake up." Honestly, really if I knew we were getting woken up I would have been able to sleep! We arrived at about 6 am, it was amazing to see what some people were struggling off with, one guy had a dismantled quad bike on a metal trolley which was propped beside his bed, he struggled to get that out of the door, and in his rucksack there were all these poles sticking out which was a shower for a friend of his!
When we got onto the station there was a man waiting to sort all the people out onto their shuttle buses which were more like army trucks and we set off for the harbour just as the sun started to rise. It was like Dawn of the Living Dead on the ferry all these people sprawled all over the place fast asleep, even me and David nodded off.
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