Going to Chiengmai from Bangkok by train.

Dragging our luggage and carrying our backpacks after alighting from the taxi, this was the sight we saw at the railway station. 

So many people! Where were they going??

 We quickly find our train first and it was the one of the two which were stationed there, so it wasn't too challenging to locate it. Since we had some time in our hands, we walked around and bought some snacks, checked out if we could upgrade our tickets to first class not.

Apparently, there were a few tickets available for first class for the next train! For your info, our tickets had been bought by a friend's uncle from Chiengmai and he had kindly mailed them over to our home address before our travel date. He told us all first class tickets were full and only second class' were available.

Hubs asked if he could change the tickets at the counter, but we were told we can't do so as it was less than 1 hour to our scheduled train. Sigh! Had no other options.

 It wasn't long before boarding time and after taking some pictures, up we went to our train/ accommodation for that night. Exciting and a bit, uhm, worried, frankly speaking.

It wasn't difficult to find our seats. It looked pretty cosy in the picture, but, oh well, it's really not THAT cosy as portrayed in it. BUT... it was still bearable. Shall I say, I would give it a score of 7.5/10, not like highly satisfied at 10/10.

 We were near to the door, which opened up to the lavatory and the washbasins.  Jumping between these carriages were heart pumping enough for me! It wasn't that easy peeing, washing hands, brushing teeth, cleansing the face in a moving train!

But at least the kids thought it was fun, and they would go off to pee or wash their hands or anything, by themselves, since the doorway was so near to us.

The train moved at the scheduled time, and there wasn't any loud horns or signals that it was starting. It just.. go!

After lingering for another hour or so, doing basically nothing much other than looking out of the window and playing on the ipad, we walked over to the restaurant to have our dinner, thinking we better be the early birds before the dinner-goers hog up the place. Surprise, surprise! There wasn't any customers seen in that. I thought we were too early, but even after we had our dinner and hang on for a long time, there wasn't many people coming in. Apparently, I believe many rather choose to order and delivered to their seats instead, or the other half bring their own dinner onboard.

 We ordered 2 sets and it was alright. Not too full, but I suppose it was good enough, to avoid any complications on a moving train for the night?

When we got back to our seats, we saw one side was turned into the bunkers. It looked pretty amazing!

Then we asked the attendant to make the other side and he did it very fast! 1, 2, 3... kaotim in about 10 mins or so. Wow!

Actually each of us had a bed by ourselves, but I wasn't feeling very comfortable meimei sleeps alone, so I slept with her. It was large enough to accommodate both of us, but hubs felt the empty bed was sooooo wasted! Kept nagging and nagging, until I can't stand it anymore and told him to stop it once and for all. It wasn't even him sharing a bed with one of them! o.0

 Very soon, we washed up and settled to bed. I was rather worried someone carrying didi away in the middle of the night, and I woke up several times over to check on him. o.0

OK, apparently, I know I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Seemed that my sister in law also thought about the same thing when she traveled with him on a sleeper train for the first time too. So, I confirmed I was pretty normal. Or at least, both of us abnormal.

 When dawn broke finally, we were back with the seats and had our breakfast there.

I don't know why, but we reached Chiengmai at around 10am+, it was almost a 14 hours' ride! Though the distance between these 2 cities, I was told, is about 700-800km. Could be wrong, but if it's true, why did it take so long? The train seemed to be chugging away pretty fast.

Look at my exhausted face! But frankly, I was very relieved we finally reached the city without any incidents, even though I didn't sleep too well that night. I think it was a really good experience with them and a moving train could lull you to a deep slumber, if you could bear the loud noise and free from the worries and fear that I had.

We checked out the local tour package at the train station and then got on a big tut tut to our hotel.

The train station of Cheingmai.