The train starts out with people seated in twos, facing one another.. and much like on an airline, seats are numbered and assigned to each passenger. Since this is an overnight train, there are also fold-out bunk beds for each pair of seat mates, and it's really impressive how they turn things over between daytime and nighttime. Somewhat surprisingly, the beds aren't overly uncomfortable.. but if you're on the top bunk like I am, there are bright white lights across the ceiling of the train that, for some reason, never get turned off.. so I was able to use my neck pillow, which is normally reserved for flights, to wrap around my head and enable me to get a good night's sleep. The Sang Som probably didn't hurt either.. but more on that later.
My seating/bunk mate happened to be Aaron of South Africa, and there are a few things that are fairly funny about this. First and foremost, Aaron is an estimated 6' 8". This is an estimate only because even after 23 years, he's somehow never had to be measured.. not at the doctor, not to get a driver's license.. not for any reason - he legitimately does not know his height. The second thing is that Aaron does virtually the same type of work (same software languages) as I do, just in a different industry.. so we had plenty of painfully boring (to others) techy stuff to discuss during the ride.
The train did serve dinner, but we were forewarned that the quality of the local fare wasn't too great, so a number of us picked up a few things from 7/11 and KFC before we departed. Those who neglected to follow that advice were mostly disappointed by the food being served, so I'm glad we had something to eat beforehand. Also, it took about 2-3 hours after orders were placed before the food was actually served, and delay applied to our drink orders as well. They primarily served beer, but thankfully there were a few liquor options including some local Thai whiskey, called Sang Som.
When I ordered whiskey and coke from the waitress in our car (who we would grow quite close to over the duration of the journey), I wasn't given any pricing or detailed on information.. simply that I would receive whiskey and coke. Instead of a regular drink, what arrived was a fifth of something called Sang Som, which actually claimed to be "Special Rum" on the bottle instead of whiskey.. though our new waitress friend assured me that it was, in fact, whiskey. A bottle of whiskey and two bottles of coke - so it's going to be that kind of night, eh?
The Sang Som, known locally as a Thai Whiskey, has a really interesting flavor.. and I rather enjoy it - as of the time of this posting, it's now been my drink of choice in Thailand for the past three days. It's basically flavored like a whiskey, but it has a sweet finish much like a rum.. and it's pretty much the least expensive thing you can drink in Thailand outside of a bottle of water - the fifth of Sang Som cost just 300 baht, or about $10.. and individual drinks cost 60-70 baht, or about $2.
Once the night got going for our group on the train, the fun began. I nursed (as is tradition) about half of the bottle for most of the night and decided to share the rest with my peers. We played some card games.. kings was the main game.. and we started to have a ridiculous time, easily disturbing many of the other paying passengers on the train. Some were younger or even middle-aged and looking to party with us, but there were also a couple of older locals who wanted no part in our shenanigans whatsoever. For this reason, after 10pm, they open up something called the karaoke car.
One more note about our game of kings (which never actually got finished) - people were starting to get toasty by this point in the evening, and so a few funny rules were put into place. The best one was from our tall, South African friend, Aaron, who mandated that each sentence would need to be completed with the phrase, "Aye, Aye, Captain." As you can probably imagine, this got more than a little tedious, and each time someone slipped up, they had to drink. As the game raged on, FTT found it harder and harder to salute to the captain.. and one time it came out so mangled that it almost sounded like "Eric Clapton" instead of "Aye, Aye, Captain" - so when it was my turn to make a rule, Damon, one of our Aussie friends, recommended that we simply tack Eric Clapton onto the end of our already-stellar salute.. and thus, it was born: "Aye, Aye, Captain, Eric Clapton." This got so ridiculous after a few minutes and had us in stitches for a good half hour, and now it comes up at least a few times a day.. plus it's also the name of our WhatsApp group - so this thing has some legs.
Back to the karaoke car, as they refer to it. Calling it the karaoke car is quite misleading, as there is absolutely no karaoke done in this car.. but it is a party car, which would be a far more appropriate name for it. There is a bartender and servers with a number of tables and loud music playing.. with all of the retired folk sleeping just one car away. And so we went to the karaoke car for an hour or so before it closed for the night, had a few more drinks and laughs, and then called it a night ourselves.
Throughout the night, our bond with the waitress in our car became stronger and stronger with each drink order. We exchanged high fives, pounds, and good times the entire night.. even into the morning. One of the waitresses simply hated us, but this one loved us. Tamara, our group leader, had a rubber chicken that let out an absurd shriek whenever it was squeezed, and our waitress friend to part in that ridiculous madness with us all over the car as well. What a fun train ride it turned out to be.
We were woken up around 6 or 7am by our favorite waitress and arrived in Chiangmai around 8. We then headed towards our hotel and got cleaned up for The Changmai Buddhist Temple for a morning of sightseeing.
Oh, PS - the Beats Pill is almost certainly a knockoff - I spotted a typo on the printed cover.. but wow, they did a nice job otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment