Leaving The City

As the train begins its journey out of Bangkok I've one thing on my mind - food. It's seven-thirty in the morning, I haven't had breakfast and I'll be on the train till after lunch. Whilst I could get away with missing one meal today, missing two seems like a little bit of a stretch. In my backpack I have half a packet of stale corn chips left over from my flight three days ago and a half-loaf of white bread I bought at a 7-Eleven the night before. But the bread is only just in case, it's an emergency measure. I'd rather not have plain bread and water as my only form of sustenance over the next six hours.

After two full days in Bangkok I decided I needed to leave. Bangkok is hot at the best of times. But in late August, at the peak of the tourist low-season, the city air is thick with humidity. The mere thought of going outside of the air-conditioned confines of a convenience store is enough for beads of sweat to start rolling down my forehead and for moisture to start gathering over my lip.

It was my third time in Bangkok in as many years and, whilst I originally wanted to spend the first week of the trip in one place, I was getting restless and impatient.

So I decided to head north. I'm still not exactly sure why. North or south were the options. I was in the south last year but there were plenty of places I hadn't gone to and could explore this time. And at this time of year, with seasonal rain showering and flooding the north and northeast, the south was the more obvious choice. So I headed north. Maybe, if for no other reason, than heading south seemed too obvious.

My hostel in Bangkok was across the road from the main train station so I thought it'd be nice to catch the train. Sure, trains were a lot slower and less reliable than buses in this part of the world, but I liked the idea of being able to get from my hostel room door to the train carriage in less than five minutes. The bus station was also a bit of a hassle to get to and could take up to an extra hour of travel to get to.

So I would take the train north to Phitsanulok, a small city a few hours south of Chiang Mai. The online schedule displayed two morning trains, one leaving at seven-thirty and one at nine. The later train had fewer stops and would, in fact, arrive earlier than the earlier train. The nine o'clock train was the more obvious choice. This time I would take the more obvious choice, I needed my beauty sleep after all.

The first issue I discovered, when I was buying the ticket at the station on the day before departure, was that there was no nine o'clock train. Or at least there were no seats left, which seemed unlikely. But, nevertheless, the man at the ticket window was adamant that I take the earlier train. I didn't have an option.

The next, more pressing issue, was that the train didn't leave from the main station. I would not get my five minute door-to-door turnaround. I need to catch a metro train first to a different station. Assuming that the metro wouldn't take too long, and already mentally committing to the idea of going north by train, I bought the ticket without checking where the station it was leaving from was.

The train left from a station right next to the bus station. Well not next to, one metro stop further away from the bus station. One metro stop away from the very bus station which had buses that would take me to my destination a lot faster than the train and at many, more convenient times of the day.

I set my alarm for six, and went to bed mentally preparing myself for my commute to the train station which had ballooned from five minutes to an hour.

With rude travellers turning on lights and leaving throughout the early hours of the morning, I was awake well before my alarm. I gathered my belongings and caught the metro to the train station next to the bus station I didn't want to go to. Arriving at seven-fifteen, I was cutting things pretty fine. I walked briskly through the metro tunnel to the connecting train station, found the platform and got on the train. I was going to pick up some lunch on the way but didn't have the time.

And so I find myself sitting on the train, click-clacking and hissing as it departs north Bangkok, wondering what I'm going to eat over the next six hours. I forgot to take my food out when I put my bag up in the overhead compartment but I'll get it later, I tell myself.

Opposite me is a middle class Thai couple probably in their early forties. The man is wearing a light green graphic t-shirt with silhouetted palm trees and emblazoned with the text, in English, "It's better in. St Thomas, V.I.". I wonder if the man has ever been to the U.S. Virgin Islands or just got the shirt on sale at a mall in Bangkok. I think it's probably the latter. His partner, clutching a Decathlon home-brand daypack, pulls down her white Chip 'n' Dale face mask to sniff a small jar of smelling salts which she then passes to her husband.

No one really talks in the early morning. Apart from the occasional nod or look from the couple opposite me to pull down the metal window cover, we don't say anything. Sitting on the eastern side of the north travelling train, the morning sun shines through onto my face and we keep the window shade down, limiting the cool breeze which was providing us some reprieve. The small fans in the ceiling aren't doing a whole lot, it was the window breeze that was keeping us kind-of cool.

As we continue north, I peer out the window pondering life, the never-ending landscape and when I'm going to get my bag down so I can have my breakfast. An hour passes. Then two. Then three. I consider buying some chicken rice from one of the vendors who get on at one stop, walk through the carriage and get off at the next. I know how to say chicken rice in Thai so when a lady enters the carriage spruiking, among other things, khao gai I consider ordering a late breakfast.

But I concern myself over the potential hygiene issues. I'm less concerned about the chicken and more concerned about the rice that may have been sitting out since last night. I decide to wait to see if anything else tickles my fancy. It doesn't. So I continue looking out the opposite side window as we rattle down the track. I could get my bag down but I could also wait a little longer.

Five hours in and I'm getting a little hungry. A vendor comes by selling boiled peanuts and bags of some sort of small, green, oval-shaped fruit. The couple opposite buys two bags of the green balls and just before I drum up the courage to buy some peanuts, the vendor leaves. I peer back out the window but the woman in the Chip 'n' Dale face mask gestures towards me and hands me a bag of the green fruit she just bought. I say thank you. She shows me how to eat the item, first by puncturing the green skin with your teeth and breaking it in half, then removing the white nut-looking food inside.

It's sort of like eating a soft macadamia or a water chestnut, depending on the ripeness of each green thing I try. The woman takes out her phone and shows me the translation on Google translate. It's not a fruit or a nut at all, it's a lotus seed. Much like the lotus root, the seed doesn't have a lot of taste apart from a slight bitterness coming from the green outer shell. Like unshelling pistachios or peanuts, it seems like it's really something to keep your hands busy rather than the actual flavour or joy you get from eating them.

At almost lunch time a bag of lotus seeds and a bottle of water have become my breakfast as we continue towards Phitsanulok. The sun is now high in the sky so we open the window shade. Rice paddies and flat plains pass by, flooded by seasonal rain.