Ayutthaya, ThailandThursday, December 31, 2009
To say that A is a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends would have to be the understatement of the month. A is a big, big fan. She has dragged her three "Thomas" books all over Thailand in the last weeks.
But I love trains, too.
So, we planned an overnight train from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand to Ayutthaya, the old Siamese capital, which is located just north of Bangkok. We tried ahead of time to prepare A for the 12-hour trip--yes, we'd be eating on the train, and sleeping there, too.
Arriving at the station in Chiang Mai I was a bit unnerved by the sight (& smell) of diesel smoke belching out of each passenger car (the air-conditioning in each car runs on a separately fueled system, I think). The heat and smoke from the diesel made us hurry onto the train with less time for inspecting "Thomas" than I had originally hoped.
The train left the station just before 6pm and darkness here falls by 7pm or so. But that was time enough to watch some of the lush Thai countryside roll by, eat dinner served in our compartment (yes, it was tasty), and settle in. A was asleep far earlier than usual, rocked to sleep by the motion of the train.I will confess to having expected something a bit more elegant (we had a first class sleeper cabin), but what we got was gray, spartan, and dirty. I think my experience with first class sleepers in China in the 1980's made me expect something quite different. Lace curtains and velvet-covered seats--or something.
But all of that mattered not to A: a ride with Thomas at last!
