Posts From Thailand

Another fast start today. Out of the hotel at 9:00 for a 10:00 train to Pandang Besar, a border town between Malaysia and Thailand, where we do border processing and pickup a night train to Bangkok. That all sounds pretty straight forward and certainly the first train was. A modern Euro-style electric train that went as fast as 150km/h. There were a lot of stops along the way and a significant number of locals getting on and off. There was not much to see during the ride because of heavy jungle close to the track that obscured ones vision. Where a view became available one noticed that palm oil forests were still plentiful but compared to yesterday there were now more rice fields. Late in this leg we saw a number of large limestone outcroppings, each attended by its own cement factory.

Despite the antique nature of the sleeping carriage Nina and I got a good nights sleep. By about 7:30 activity in the carriage picked up with passengers going through their morning rituals and merchants walking through selling various foods (almost non of which I could recognize) and drinks. About 1 hour before the schedued arrival in Bangkok the cabin staff started the process of returning the carriage to its day-time seated configuration which in addition required the rolling up and collection of all the bedding. Quite a process to witness.