We have made it to Surat Thani, Thailand. It was over 24 hours of train travel, half of which was AMAZING, half of which was AWFUL! I will start with the awful so I can end with the good.
After our first train trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok (the good one) we ran to make our next train. This should have been our first clue to just wait for the next train that we could get another sleeper car on. But apparently it takes us like 16 times before we learn something because everytime we have to rush to go somewhere it never goes well.
So as we were running to the train with 8 bags of stuff we made our way to our seats. It was a pretty crappy train even though I paid almost the same as the fancy sleeper train from the night before. The bathrooms were totally gross and even though we sat very far from them we could smell them the whole time. Peyton immediately asked, “where’s our bed?”. No bed on this one, we each got our own little seat, but no worries children you only have to sit still for 9 hours and then we will be there. Why did I not turn around when I passed the stinky potty?
Jarrett and a porter loading our crap on the train
We got out all of the video games and got cozy. It was going pretty well for about 1 hour, the boys were happily playing their games and Jarrett and I were working on his book together putting the final touches. I had gone to the bathroom a couple of times and smiled at everyone each way and everyone seemed so happy and good natured, they were even making googly eyes at the boys.
the nice man smiling at the camera was not the man from the story, he was just our nice neighbor. The mean man had not boarded yet.
Peyton and Conner sharing headphones and watching a movie
Jarrett and I are sitting beside each other when a man comes up to us. I had seen him before , he was 5 rows behind us. A young European man with his wife and he was working on his laptop. He comes up to us and does not complain about the boys being loud because they had their noses in their DS’s which were turned on silent, but he came to complain about me and Jarrett talking either too loudly or just about his book, I did not quite understand. I was in shock and it took me a few moments to process what he was saying. Something about us going back and forth about what we liked and didn’t and to keep it down please. Now I am not a very quiet person and Jarrett says that I yell sometimes when I think I am talking, but I honestly was just talking normal. Besides, this train was a joke of loudness, the conductor blared the horn every few seconds for the entire 9 hours and we would have to wait to talk until it was over. That along with the other hundred people talking and eating made it normal, middle of the day Thailand transportation.
But no matter how stupid I thought the guy was or how loud I was or was not being, I am a peaceful person, so I smiled and said sure, we can try to talk softer.
Now onto Jarrett. Not quite as peaceful as me and he had not slept the night before, he was pretty put out and wanted to go back and talk to the guy, but I asked him for me to puh-lease let it go. I was not in the mood for drama on this small train and I kept having to pee in the stinky bathroom and I did not want to have to pass him and it be awkward. Jarrett decided that he loved me more than being right with the bully man so he conceded and we went back to his book.
Sadly the man did not know what was good for him and he came back. Only this time it was to plug in his laptop right in front of us (that is where the plug on the train was) and sit at our feet. It only took about 1/10 of a second for Jarrett to let into him and rip him a new one about what his beef was with us when clearly he did not have issues with personal space and so on. Now we might be rightly accused of being loud. Jarrett went on and on and the man was in shock. I was mortified at the time even though all that Jarrett was saying was true but now I laugh my head off at it.
The man went back to his seat.
Jarrett cooled off a bit. And true to his nature when he has had adequate sleep he got up and went to apologize to the man. He told him that he meant all he said but he was overly harsh and he was sorry. I was proud of him standing up for us and then apologizing. It all went well and I could still go potty and we smiled at each other. He even came up later and thanked Jarrett for apologizing and complimented the boys’ fire pants on the way out. Oh my.
While bully man was one huge part of the awful train trip, the main part was the boys having to sit still on a beautiful day for 9 hours back to back with our 12 hours train trip. I will never do that again, but I will go on another sleeper train!!!
Sleeper trains rock!
Rewind from bad train to the day before and we got onto the first train, the sleeper one at 5 pm. I was nervous because I had really wanted to get a 1st class cabin because it was private and I was not sure I would feel comfortable sleeping with other people watching me. Well it turns out that it was super private and we had our own cabin anyways since we had booked 4 beds and that is how many are in each cubby.
so excited to ride our first over night train
It was too cool. We had 2 couch size seats facing each other that turned into beds and the boys had 2 beds above us with an awesome ladder to get to them.
this man was so kind and was assigned to our car the entire time making we had everything we needed and were safe
we were so shocked and happy that there was a plug! and even more perfect since Jarrett is a major dork and travels with a power strip in his backpack so not one electronic bit the dust on this trip!
point proven
the boys closed their curtains and played in their caves almost the entire time, I was so happy for them
we even had our own mirror
if this was good imagine what the other train looked like
we walked around a little bit but it was kind of dangerous between cars so I made the boys hold my hand:) That is the tracks right where your foot could slip
the funky restaurant car. The boys are celebrities in Thailand, everyone is always touching them and kissing them. Sometimes they like it and sometimes they don’t
I really wanted to eat in there but it was always full and they were blaring Shania Twain and I could not hear a thing, even Conner was holding his ears and begging to get out. We ordered food to have brought to our car, that was fun too.
It was so fun to have no distractions, no internet and to be in a small space as a family. We just talked and hung out and Jarrett and I watched the rest of Season 3 of Glee which he had downloaded just for this occasion.
Peyton told us this looong story from a funny part in his movie, I finally got my camera out I was having such a fun time watching him
he was crying by the end from all of the laughing
I will always choose to travel by sleeper train if it is an option-A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
