straight from the end of the world
by Rach
looking out the back window of the train
As expected, the train left an hour late. Standing on the steaming platform, Rob couldn’t help himself commenting that this was so much more fun than taking a plane 😉
Before long it was Grandpa’s turn for comment; he was observing that bus travel and train travel in Malaysia have a lot in common – the view is of palm oil plantations and rubber trees!
But surprisingly quickly the landscape turned to rice paddies. What excitement when we snatched the very first glimpse – little did we realise the view would still be the same after a night’s sleep!! For hours we sped past those coffee-table-book images of bright green waterlogged paddies broken up by shack villages or the odd ox or worker wading through his paddy with spray pack on his back or a man with bamboo fishing pole riding along the raised dirt paths on his bicycle.
It was 8:30pm before we got through Thai immigration (by the way, it’s just a tad disconcerting to be waved through and then called back while a second check – or something, which you have no idea about – is performed) and had dinner delivered. T4 is not a super-spicy-fan and the ground chicken with rice was extra-super-spicy for even the most chili-accustomed palates. I feared our little girl would go hungry, but she chomped her way through her portion and downed the fungus-beancurd-celery soup with relish.
As the children were well and truly ready for bed (although, I am delighted to say they were still behaving impeccably despite the late hour), we were relieved when Mr Train Man started his expert conversion of seats to sleepers. Before long everyone was ensconced in their green-canopied lying-compartments….it would be too much to call them sleeping places as we tended to wake each time we jolted to a stop at a station!
Finally, when I woke-for-the-last-time, dawn was breaking. With it came signs in a strange script, more rice paddies, long-legged long-necked white heron-like birds with black-tipped wings (could they perhaps be herons?), palms rising up out of the green, rounded mountains framing the horizon….there were even three elephants clambering out of a pond. At last, I felt we were in a *different* world.
The images continued as fast as I could commit them to paper. (Excuse me being so lazy as to copy this straight from my paper-journal) A bright blue bird with fire engine red beak darts past the window. Scrawny oxen feed in the shade. Pigs root about in a bamboo-poled enclosure. Rice paddies give way to rectangular plots of vegetable crops for a short time. The ubiquitous corrugated iron is more silvery here than Malaysia’s rust version. Thatching covers many structures. Large plastic banners (the only one I recognise proclaims something about PEPSI) form walls of houses – although “house” seems too generous a term. The silver corrugation generalisation proves to be short-lived. Deep red rust corrugations can soon be seen on walls, on roofs and as fences encircling compounds. Grubby washing dries on bamboo poles, trees, strings strung between posts, bushes, beside ramshackle residences and underneath raised houses.
As towns and cities come into view, there are more and more motorcycles, with more and more people on each one and the helmets being taken for a ride in the front baskets, there are apartment blocks sprouting television aerials, tuktuks, some mansions, more frequent temples…
We approach Bangkok, but not before T4 takes a turn telling about the train toilets….
They are sitting ones, not squatty ones. But there’s no back on it, just a seat and the paint is coming off it. And water is splashed everywhere. Actually, when you want to wash your hands you push a pedal on the floor and the water comes out into the sink. The sink is very very small. There is also a hose with a sprayer, but we don’t use that. (Rach adds – that high-powered jet was fantastic for cleaning out a pair of soiled undies – oh the joys of travelling with a wee girl who has not got the poo-thing quite sorted yet 😉 )
The Ultimate Verdict: we’re looking forward to the rest of our train journeys as much as when we set out, only now we’ve survived one and so we can possibly no longer be called hopelessly romantic idealists!
Tags: parenting, postcard: Thailand, transport
rayres
I think that would be a real experience
i for one have never slept on a train
I love the photo of the train tracks, and the beds! How fun!! I am glad you got to see such exciting views – elephants!!! Awesome guys. Your descriptions were wonderful.
what a great site! I really enjoyed reading about your adventures, especially in Malaysia, my country of birth. What fun to explore those alleyways in Penang – great photos!
I am so impressed at how you manage to travel with your youngest. My youngest son is just two and taking him anywhere is so much more work than taking the older ones out. You washing out pants comment made me laugh – I guess at least you are doing it with a view of rice paddies!