Bangkok to Chiang Mai by night train

Posted by paul on August 26th, 2009 filed in Adventure, tourist tips

Two weeks ago my friends and I travelled 14 hours by night train from the hectic metropolis of Bangkok to the ancient and more laid-back city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Being the clever, economically conscious globetrotters that we are, we packed plenty of snacks and our dinner.

It was great chilling on our bunks, listening to music, reading or just hanging out. At 21:30 a railway representative visited our coach to set up all passengers’ beds. Seemed that the bed on the bottom offered the most space and although the higher positioned bed had been given to me, I ended up sleeping next to my mate on the bottom bunk.

This way I avoided falling off the top bunk in the early morning hours. At certain times the train felt like a rollercoaster with too many sharp curves and there was just a sole rope “preventing” passengers from tumbling out of their shaky beds. At about 06:30 the train suddenly stopped. A few minutes later someone appeared in the doorway and told us that the train couldn’t continue its way along the tracks, due to technical problems.

Reaching our final destination, we all had to board buses. It was a rather amusing scene, watching passengers that were still half-asleep, getting out of their bunks, gathering their stuff and quickly making their way to one of the buses outside.
 
This unexpected event was the greatest example of one of those unpleasant and stressful travel moments everyone will talk about during the rest of their holiday. Fortunately, everything went just fine for us for one major reason: we didn’t forget bringing food along. Once we were seated in the bus, we peeled some oranges and bananas, had a couple of peanut-buttered buns and happily continued our trip to Chiang Mai.

Timetable – trains from Bangkok