Planes, trains and Automobiles.

So we got on the ferry at half past two , to make the journey back to mainland , before we got on the ferry we had to sign that we were leaving which was a bit strange as we didn't sign to say we were arriving. The journey wasn't too bad, at least the passengers looked more alive than the journey across. As we got off the ferry the  police were there taking photos of people getting off, so I don't know if they are being more vigilant because of recent events or not, but seemed strange they even turned up at the railway station. From the ferry  we had to catch the bus back to the train station and once more we got on a night train, this journey was fine, we are starting to get the hang of night trains and both of us slept well.They had a subtle alarm clock on this train, a record of a lady warbling away, I presume in Thai, which suddenly came over the tannoy, unfortunately this was about two hours before we needed to get up. 

After this journey we had to buy tickets to get another train up to the airport, this part of the trip took an hour. We were travelling third class with the locals which totally bemused them and us. When we bought our tickets we were told to sit anywhere and on the ticket it said to sit anywhere and the guard on the platform looked at our ticket and told us to sit anywhere, so we chose a seat in an empty carriage and sat down, adjusted our heavy rucksacks and settled for the trip. Yup you guessed it, a Thai couple then walked up and we were sat in their seats, they asked us what seat we should be in and we said anywhere. Looking confused they sat down  across the aisle from us, after a wee while she looked across at me and smiled, I smiled back and said " Do you want to swap seats",  "Oh yes," she said leaping up like a whippet to  get her assigned seat. So we wobbled our bags over to sit across the aisle and settled down again. We chugged through a few stations with more and more people piling on, it is amazing what they carry, they were passing things in through the train window to each other and piling it up high all over the place. Then  a little old man was suddenly in front of me asking what seat I should be in, I didn't explain I just said I would move,  he wandered down the aisle and returned with his wife and big boxes of things. So I was now sat totally separate from David who was left with the elderly couple who were actually very sweet, chattered away in Thai to David and were offering him food from their packed lunch. On Thai trains they have lots of sellers constantly wandering up the aisles selling their wares, food, drinks and even  books, one of them was selling fried egg on boiled rice, which seems to be popular over here, but it must have got cold with all the wandering up and down he was doing. 

We had a list of stations that we knew we had to go through so when we got to the station before ours David told me to get ready I hoisted my rucksack on and headed to the doors, David followed and there we stood ready to get off, and we stood and we stood, what David told me was about five minutes between stops must have actually been about twenty minutes and the problem was the sellers who kept trying to get passed us. Now the third class trains here are what we had way back, so there are gaps between the carriages, so to get from one to another you have to step over a gap, just a small gap,but there is a gap. The doors of the train  are also left open as the train thunders along so I was not happy about standing in the doorway or moving to the next carriage, so every time a seller came passed we had to reverse back into the carriage we had been in and then move forward again, this happened at least 5 times much to the amusement of the other passengers although the sellers were tutting a bit. I was so glad to see our stop. 

 After leaving the train we had a short walk to the airport where we arrived 5 hours early, yippee ! A little airport, nothing there and 5 hours to kill. With little to do to pass the time we bought a packet of sweet corn flavoured crisps, the shop didn't have much choice, but they were actually very nice. Once we were on the plane it was a short journey to Chang Mai, getting through the airport was quick and we were soon in a taxi to our guesthouse, which is lovely , it is called The Rustic Guesthouse and thankfully it doesn't live up to its name.