Crap Day In Chiang Mai

(incomplete)

Sunday, 30 October 2005

There are no second class sleepers with fan available on the train to Chiang Mai that my friend is catching. Because I only have a few days left in the country, I figure “how bad can it be”, and book a third class seat.

1430: For the first few hours, the guard kindly lets me through to sit with Caitlin in second class, where tickets cost 500 Baht. Maybe I got a good deal out of this. There are plenty of empty seats; it looks like I can sleep here. I only paid 180 Baht for my seat, but it doesn’t look like I’ll need it.

1830: As the sky darkens and I take streaky pictures of the sunset through glass, the carriage is filling up. The attendant makes up top bunks for people, some of whom are already going to bed. I try and blend in. After all I’m “Farang” (a Caucasian), so it’s only natural for me to be in second class.

1930: As the guard attends to Caitlin’s bunk, I try to put a pillowcase on the lower bunk’s pillow, and he shakes his head and takes it off me. I pretend not to understand, but slowly I realise that third class awaits.

2030: I climb into my giant yellow backpack that’s filled with shoes from Konchanaburi, weird bottles of stuff from the pharmacy, and things I actually need. Once again I walk the length of the train to find Carriage 6. There’s only one Farang in third class, a tubby middle-aged man with a red nose who stares at me like I’m a thief.

Carriage six is not there! After Carriage 10, there’s a dining car. I’m sure I didn’t walk through this before. I would remember because a dining car makes me think of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. No matter how many mundane dining cars I see, I’ll always think of them with slight awe.

(Caitlin in Chiang Mai)

So I backtrack. The carriages aren’t numbered like they might be in the West, although Thailand’s so much more organised than Vietnam, I had culture shock when I got off the plane. This tropical, developing, Buddhist South East Asian country overwhelmingly reminded me of home.

The tubby man eyes me with slightly less suspicion as I walk past him this time, probably because I’m doing a convincing impression of a lost tourist. The third time I walk past him, he asks me “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”
“Ja,” I reply.
“What are you looking for?”
“Carriage 6.” I scrabble for my ticket.
“Oh don’t worry about that. Just sit anywhere. There’s a seat free here.” He gestures towards the seat behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED...