Feb 24 - Find a better way to walk to the train station, that doubles the time but is significantly less harrowing. The only train going to Bangkok after 7:00 leaves at 13:00, and is 3rd class so tickets only available an hour before departure, costing a cheap 120 Baht for 3 people. Odette and I find a place selling pad thai near the station so we quickly get some and back before departure.
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The train is really basic, an old, dirty carriage with just a few fans in operation. Not a popular one with tourists, we see no one who doesn’t look Thai. It is a hot trip north, though endless date oil palm plantations and rice fields. We seem to have lost all the rubber trees.
Thailand is going through a major upgrade phase on the railway system. Nearly all the stations we pass, whether we stop at them or not, are being completely rebuilt. Also, roads crossing the railway line are being elevated over the top of it, or tunneled underneath. Many of these elevated roads are basically huge U-turns over the track, apparently because they didn’t want to build long ramps perpendicular to the rail line. It seems like an extraordinary effort to eliminate crossing the tracks. Nearly all the tunnels I saw going under the tracks are full of water (and it is the dry season). I have read that this is a $21 billion effort, initiated in 2020, with the main point being to connect Bangkok with a train line currently being built by China in Laos. This is part of China’s much touted ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. Maybe what we are seeing is an extension of this upgrade to connect with Malaysia.
Late in the afternoon, we turn 90 degrees east and join another railway line at Ban Pong. This connection is famous for being part of the old Siam-Burma Railway line, built during the Japanese occupation in 1940-43 using prisoners. At Ban Pong a large group of Chinese train enthusiasts get on, who may well have been following the old railway line from the Burmese border. The scenery gets more urban as we move into the vast metropolis that is Bangkok (called Krung Thep).
Off at one station before the train terminus at Thonburi (the train was about 5.5 hours). It is just a concrete slab crammed between city streets. We go up to the metro line and take a series of two metro trains to the Sam Yot station. It is already dark by now, but streets are well lit from here for the 12 minute walk north to our hotel (CHERN Hostel) off of Bamrung Mueang Road. Just east of here is a street with lots of food options.
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