Hell Train

After an inspiring but exhausting day with the elephants, we climbed onto the night train from Hell.

As we didn’t have a sleeper ticket, we were on high-backed bench seats in a carriage that had windows that were half-glass half-grill to ensure that adequate ventilation was maintained, and had a toilet at each end – neither of which had toilet paper, running water or anywhere to store what went in it – it all went onto the tracks.

Normally this would cause us no concern, as the train was leaving at 9:30pm and arriving at 9:30am, so we would sleep in between. However, the train was freezing, absolutely freezing. We each wore two to three layers of clothing (however light the clothing was), and wrapped ourselves in sarongs and leant against eachother, and could still barely sleep for the cold! Then at about 5am when we woke up, we came to realise that the train had been stopped for almost 2 hours, and that there had been some kind of accident. At 8am the train started up again, and 20min later, stopped again.

First we were advised that the train would carry on at 10am. Then 11. Then 1-1:30, then at 2pm.

Those train toilets, and half-windows that would not have otherwise bothered us, had become upsetting.

At 2:20, after being informed by a local tuk-tuk driver that the train was likely to sit right there overnight, we went with 5 others to get a taxi. They were going to Bangkok airport, so as to make their flights. As we were headed to Lopburi, and the fastest route to the airport did not go through Lopburi, we decided to go with them until Ayuthaya, and then get out and get a bus.

This became quite an expensive affair, as we paid 6x the cost of our train tickets for the taxi journey, then paid a quarter of the cost of our train tickets for the bus from Ayuthaya, to arrive in Lopburi at 9:30pm, instead of 9:30am! And right after we checked into our hotel, two girls that had been on our train, and stayed on it, checked in.

SEE PHOTOS AT http://s136.photobucket.com/albums/q164/erinfearn/SE%20Asia/Hell%20Train/