Train Ride

We paid for seats in a minivan for the 3 hour drive to Trang from Koh Lanta. This was probably the scariest part of our journey. We packed ourselves into this van and they had Shannon sitting in the front middle seat, between the driver and a Thai passenger. None of us had seatbelts, they had all been removed from the van. Twice along the route the van stopped and put on another passenger. Another family from France was also in the van and the driver tried to have their small son and Shannon share a seat, after their refusal he tried to put Shannon with a different, very small Thai girl. We objected vehemently because we had all paid for our seats. I was so scared we would be put off in the middle of nowhere! So the driver repacked the pile of luggage and a very old man and young girl shared a seat in the back with the luggage! Oh my! The driving was crazy! He sped through the very narrow backroads without much regard to other drivers and had me catching my breath many times. We arrived in Trang in time for our overnight trainride to Bangkok.

Another first for us, the train. The 1st class car was completely sold out so we bought the 2nd class ticket. We each got our own seat and own bed, but shared the train car with other people, and it was air-conditioned, what more could we ask! The kids began the trip by meeting a 17 year-old Thai boy and he taught them lots of hand games and magic tricks. The train was incredibly loud, the clickety-clack of the tracks, resounding through the traincar. We were doing just fine, enjoying a beer, when a rather inconspicuous bug traipsed his way across my table, right in front of me! My reaction of course was the butt of many jokes! But you won't believe this, while lying in my bunk reading before going to sleep, I swear that same bug went walking right in front of my eyes on the wall! The porter selling beer really took a liking to Eric. She would walk by and smile with a little suggestive eyebrow lift, then walk by from the other direction, and smile again, this went on throughout the entire trip, very disconcerting. Eric was actually worried about going to sleep! She went out of her way to make sure Eric had everything he needed. She even brought us a bucket to keep our beer cold! We bought a beer for each of us, then she brought us the bucket full and said it was in case we wanted another and she wasn't around, of course by then, they were all empty! :)