Believe it or not, up until this day I hadn't used a single train in over 14 months of traveling (There were trains in Vietnam, but they were about twice as expensive as sleeper buses, so I didn't bother). In Thailand, trains are very affordable and so I boarded a night train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok last night. This is a train leaving Chaing Mai railway station:
The carriages were definitely not among the most modern, but built to the purpose, clean and comfortable. This is what they looked like during the day:
In the evening, the carriage attendant came along and converted the carriage into a moving hotel: he folded out the top bunk and made up the beds with mattresses, sheets, pillows, blankets and curtains - all in a rapid speed that must be the result of lots and lots of practice. In the end, my bed looked like this:
After a refreshing night - better than in any of the sleeper buses I've been in - we arrived in Bangkok in the morning with only about an hour's delay. Walking the few blocks to my hostel, I could already notice that Bangkok has a very different climate from Chiang Mai: much hotter, and much more humid. Luckily, I could spend the rest of the day inside, preparing for my job interview tomorrow ;-)
