Slow Travel

September 27th 2022

I arrived in Thailand last Friday September 23rd and took the 13-hour night train to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. This is a bit of a tradition with me and traditions are hard to break. It’s the slow travel thing, I’m a big fan.

Leaving England was hard but I had Thailand on my mind and wanted to return earlier than usual after more than two and a half years away. The Heathrow airport queue for my bag drop with Eva Air, a Taiwanese airline, was full of those disgusting, thick and sorry to say, ugly British men who travel to Thailand with only one thing on their small minds. I had forgotten about them; how they always put a damper on my flight (this one was about 20% female) and test my patience. As we queued they were bragging loudly about where in Thailand to find the best women for sex. The lowlife of Britain. Luckily I sat next to a lovely young guy on the plane. He restored my faith in the British male visitor to Thailand as, of course, they are not all tarred with the same brush! The plane was heading for Taipei in Taiwan (via Bangkok) and therefore was also full of quiet, well-mannered Taiwanese. The Taiwanese crew were efficient, polite and super fast and the food and wine were the best I’d had in Economy for a long while. I didn’t sleep for more than an hour in total. I watched a lot of films.

My arrival in Bangkok felt like a home-coming. Everything was so familiar and so well-loved. The international airport is beautiful and user-friendly, unlike the Heathrow I had just left. I sailed through customs and got my 30-day visa stamped in my new British, post-Brexit passport. I had not known at the time of booking my flights that the following week (from October 1st) new arrivals would walk away with 45 days stamped in their passports. I had missed this Thai “generosity” by a week!

I knew I wanted to travel slowly so I took the “hilarious” number 555 bus (in Thai 555 is pronounced “hahaha”!) to Don Mueang airport, where my train station was situated. The bus, which usually takes an hour to cover the 20 miles, was stuck in the Friday evening traffic jams and took a full hour and a half. The only other foreigner on the bus was an Israeli man who was heading for the national park of Hat Yai. His bus stop and train station were, he thought, a stop after mine. As the bus crawled along, he became increasingly worried that he might not catch the last train. He tried to ask the conductress and a passenger about the whereabouts of his station but nobody spoke English. I got up to translate and then the Thais rushed into helping mode, as is their wont. It was fortunate I did this because his station arrived before mine and he leapt off in shock at the last moment, grabbing all his packs, luckily not leaving anything behind. At 6pm it is dark in Thailand so he rushed off into the night. I hope he caught his train!

Bangkok bus 555, always good for a laugh!

At my train station, I queued for my ticket. I had imagined paying for a couchette and sleeping like a baby to the rhythm of the rocking train. But it was Friday evening and I could only get a third class seat! That’s to say, a hard, wobbly, right-angled seat in an ancient, shabby carriage packed with poorer Thais or those Thais like me, who weren’t able to get a couchette or a second class seat.

The cost of a third class seat on a 13-hour, 740km ride?   £7.50/8 euros/8$. Not bad.

Another reason to catch the slow train to Chiang Mai was the wish to get my rusty Thai out of the storeroom of my brain and see if I could remember anything. It is always the way here that if you speak Thai, people will want to engage with you and chat away till the cows come home. Empty spaces on benches in train and bus stations are patted vigorously and eye contact made until you sit, wedged uncomfortably between strangers, both sides demanding your attention in their well-mannered Thai way. So there you are, swivelling your head left and right and trying to understand what they are saying through the face mask that is still worn everywhere. The usual questions, “How old are you? Have you got a boy/girlfriend? (gender-neutral word) Have you got any children? Where are you going? How come your Thai is so good? (gestures of thumbs up, eyes crinkling in a supposedly wide smile; difficult to know with the mask). I was surprised that my Thai was still there in the storeroom and just needed a little airing to get it back to normal. The man on my right, practising his rusty English, asked endearingly, “Have you got a darling?” Thais like to tell you about their marriages (rare) divorces (frequent) and widowhood (extremely frequent.) They love to tell you about their children and grandchildren, if they have them. When you tell them you don’t have children they stare at you in horror and run out of things to say. My childless friend keeps a photo of two random kids in his wallet and lies to please them. Thais will always tell you, wow, you’re very thin!/too thin!/fat! (never too fat!) and they will often ask you how much everything costs in your country. You are and will always be an object of fascination and amusement.

Third class seats on Thai trains are not the most comfortable but there is always food and refreshment on hand!

The train to Chiang Mai pulled into the station and I heaved my 21-kilo case up the steep steps into the second class seat compartment. The carriage seemed to hail from the age of Agatha Christie’s Orient Express. It was lined with wood but everything was broken, rusty and shabby. However the seats were individual, reclining, with plenty of legroom and as comfortable as the Ritz compared to my hard third class seats, which didn’t even have enough room for two people to put their feet on the floor without bumping knees! (The person opposite me had her feet on the floor first so mine were curled up on the seat all night). I could see my crowded third class carriage in the distance but my case was too wide to be wheeled down the narrow aisle. Picture the scene; the train had started to move so I knew I could not get off and rush to the third class section. I stood in the narrow space by the broken door, which would not shut and which stayed stubbornly open for the entire journey of 13 hours. This is normal in Thailand but I have never had to spend any time standing next to one, hurtling along at full speed! Grabbing hold of a rail, I was terrified that I or my case would fall out, we were both being blown around, the door was slamming against the wall and the noise was deafening! A young Thai man from a second class seat came rushing up and there began a long and arduous negotiation (over the noise!) about what I could do and what he could do to help. He offered me his seat! He offered to carry the case to my seat (he was probably the same size as me!). In the end he went down the aisle and asked a tall foreign man to help. This young man was an Israeli called Navan. He effortlessly hoisted the case onto his shoulders and took off towards third class. I found a space at the end of second class to store it. There was no room for such a large case in third class. Those two men were unbelievably kind. A kindness you never forget when travelling and, believe me, the kindnesses are many.

Once in third class, I was reminded of the gift Thai people have of sleeping wherever they happen to be; at their market stalls, five minutes after taking their seat on a bus and now, on a third class seat to Chiang Mai! I will fast forward my painful, sleepless night to 5am, when I saw a spare pair of second class seats, recently vacated. I hurried to take them before anyone else had the same idea, stretching out my legs in pure bliss but I didn’t sleep because the coffee man was coming round with delicious (it seemed to me) sugary, 3-in-1 instant coffee for 50 pence/55 cents and at 6am it was getting light. I had spent one more sleepless night on this train but I knew why I hadn’t flown to Chiang Mai. At first light, we were at last in northern Thailand and our trusty train was slowly winding its way through thick verdant jungle and tree-covered mountains. Those mountains are so dear to me, they hold so many memories of hiking their trails and spending nights with my beloved hiking group in rustic cabins on their slopes. The train chugged through the jungle for a full two hours. I was mesmerised and grateful. Slow travel! You cannot beat it!

The train winds its way through the jungles and mountains of northern Thailand

Chiang Mai train station

Arriving in Chiang Mai’s quaint little train station at 9am, I emerged into bright tropical sunlight (it only rains once or twice a day in the monsoon season and the rest of the time the air is fresh and the sun shines) and took a tuk tuk through the town to my hotel. The streets were quiet and empty and it felt like the old days, when Chiang Mai was just a sleepy backwater.

The jetlag and tiredness were nothing compared to the shock at retrieving my mouldy and smelly possessions from the tiny, damp storeroom after two and a half years! And my poor old bike (my treasured possession) needed hospitalisation! It is now in the hands of Chiang Mai’s best bike “doctor” and will soon look as good as new with a shiny new saddle to boot. The town is eerily quiet, as it often is in the rainy season, but the effects of a pandemic are noticeable in the closure of many small businesses and even my favourite mall, Kad Suan Kaew (or Central). However the preparation for the tourist season is under way. Some of this preparation can be seen in the opening of new “weed cafés”, where newly-decriminalised cannabis can be smoked or eaten. Chiang Mai is now an Asian Amsterdam! It is something I never thought I’d see in anti-drug Thailand. Luckily all my favourite restaurants and coffee shops are still open and life seems to be as normal as can be, just more peaceful and frankly more enjoyable! My hotel is quiet and my usual room, looking out over the huge tamarind tree, with its birds and squirrels, is as comfortable as ever. I sit on my balcony in the evenings and pinch myself. Am I really back?

My hotel in the old town is sandwiched between two Mavoix weed shops

At the Sunday walking street market, a much-anticipated weekly event in Chiang Mai, where Thai artisans set up stalls and sell their crafts, I was able to stroll along in a comfortable manner, unlike the terrible congestion of the peak tourist season. It was only the heavy downpour that hindered our meanderings. But with an umbrella and flip flops, the rain in Thailand is not a bother. And the stallholders have their plastic covers to keep everything dry. Foreign tourists, mainly French, German, Israeli, British and Australian, are increasingly seen and heard now and as each day passes, more will come. For now the thousands of Chinese tourists seem to be absent. They are still “imprisoned” by the Chinese government with its zero-Covid policy.

I have four friends, three men and one woman, who are resident here and we are anticipating our two-and-a-half-year catch-ups over coffee and meals. Next week, two Dutch friends return, then others, including my eleven dear Israeli friends, will slowly trickle back and by November we shall be quite a crowd! The reunions will be joyful and emotional, of that I am sure. Live music nights; classical concerts and rock bands, reggae and Lanna (northern Thai) traditional music, along with a myriad of colourful festivals will fill our lives and I will be singing once again with my choir “Lannacapella”, missing my dearly departed Canadian friend (and tenor) Richard, who never made it back to his beloved Chiang Mai. Neither did dear Yoram from Tel Aviv. Neither did dear Hannah from Canada. May all three rest in peace. We will miss them and think of them often.

If it hadn’t been for the joyful times and loving friends (and their cats!) in San Miguel, Mexico, I would have been even more homesick for Thailand these past two and a half years. But Mexico, my friends (and their cats) have torn at my heart strings and now compete with my beloved Thailand. For this year, however, Thailand will have all of my attention because I have some catching up to do!

Home sweet home; reunited with the tamarind tree