After
lots of planning, hours spent on Trip Advisor working out the logistics and
some blind faith that Thailand Railways would indeed send our tickets (bought a
month out) to our hotel in Bangkok we headed out in the predawn cool for what
we knew was going to be a long day.
Haulamphong
Railway station is Bangkok’s Central – but funnily enough it doesn’t compare
with the Berlin Hauptbahnhof or even Sydney’s central. Our train, the “Tourist Excursion train to
Nam Tok” was scheduled for a 6.30am departure.
Our expectations of comfort etc were low, and met but hey, it’s an
adventure! It departed sort-of on time
and painfully slowly crawled its way out of Bangkok’s sprawling
metropolis. Satellite dishes on rusty
iron & plastic sheeting roofs are just a bit incongruous.
We
had ‘booked seats’ but when we got on there were people in these seats so we
just found an empty one further along the carriage and figured we’d deal with
the seat issue later. A man in a uniform
saw we had tickets and walked past.
Sometime later the boss ticket man came through and started moving
people all over the place. We knew he
was the boss ticket man because his uniform had more gold buttons, more ribbons
etc and he was wearing a hat! We
followed his instructions when he gestured that we were in the wrong seats, and
then insisted we had our right seats when we realised our seats were facing the way
the train was going and the lady occupying them suggested we take the seats
opposite and therefore facing backwards.
Once
the important train ticket man got seating sorted he took off his special hat
and took hold of a megaphone and became the funny tour guide – shame we had
absolutely no idea what he was saying but it must have been funny because he
and the rest of the passengers all laughed.
Maybe it was something about the silly farang (foreigner) pair in seats
32 & 33.
First
stop was the town of Nakhon Pathom for a 40 min visit to the Giant Chedi – pretty
amazing from a distance but we were saving the knee so didn’t venture much past
the markets where we got muffins for breakfast from a little cake shop and
coffee from a street cart.
This
train is notoriously slow (and late) but we arrived at Kanchanaburi pretty much
on time. The train stops for 25 minutes
so you can walk across the infamous Bridge over the River Kwai. Besieged by vendors trying to sell us books,
food, and tacky souvenirs we made our way to and over the bridge on foot. Back on the train for the slow crossing.
Back
on the train and through some really pretty landscape we rocked and clattered
our way to Nam Tok. This little town is
the end of the line and most passengers were Thai day trippers heading for the
waterfall. It seems that 10 scheduled hours
(5 there and 5 back) on the train for 2 hours at the waterfall is a strange way
to spend the day but they all seemed to be enjoying the party atmosphere with
lots of seat swapping, eating and laughing.
This
train is 3rd class so you’re a/c is an open window. Track side maintenance is pretty much
non-existent so by the end of the trip the floor looked like it had been
mulched – track side greenery was whipped off by the train and showered in
through the open windows. We put the window
up except for the top 6-8” but still managed to get covered in leaves, bits of
stick, and even the occasional insect.
We
had arranged for a car & driver to meet us at Nam Tok to take us directly
to Hellfire Pass. We wanted to visit the
Memorial Museum and walk the track. The
driver found us – not hard there were only 3 other white people on the train
and with the aid of some pretty simple gestures, showed us the way to the 7/11
where we could grab something a bit more substantial to eat. We didn’t have time or language skills (and
he certainly couldn’t act as a translator) to venture to the road-side food
carts. Sandwiches, a couple of cartons
of flavoured milk and a bag of what I thought was mango slices and we were
off. Turns out I had inadvertently bought
a packet of pickled mango – oh well, tick that off the list of life’s experiences.
The
drive from Nam Tok to Hellfire Pass is about half an hour. The Memorial Museum is quite small but is the
starting point of a 90min walk along the actual rail bed. We got the audio guide, the walkie-talkie (to
call for help etc) water and applied bug spray as instructed and set off – not quite
sure what to expect and wondering if Tony’s knee would in fact hold up given
the warnings about the need to be in good physical shape due to the steepness
of the path.
We
had wanted to visit the Weary Dunlop Memorial Park, but the original owner of
the resort where it is situated (and
designer/builder/funder) has sold and the new owners only allow resident guests
– damn shame because he could make some money by charging an entry fee to
non-guests.
Back
to Kanchanaburi, paid the driver and grabbed a coffee before hopping on the
5.20 bus back to Bangkok.
We both dozed
a bit but I woke bolt upright & wide awake at some very hard breaking, a
skid and then a loud bang. Yep, the bus
and a Toyota rukus-like-thing had turned a Toyota hilux into a sandwich. We sit on the bus for about 20 minutes, the
next scheduled bus pulls in to the space between our bus and the other accident
vehicles, everyone off our bus and onto the other one… ooops not enough room –
OK wait for the next one (20 minutes) – rain starts – 10 remaining passengers
get back onto our original bus, it pours, the bus leaks, we move seats. Next bus goes through standing room
only. Our driver gets back on and moves
our bus 100m up the road where we wait again.
Next bus (the last for the day) stops and we get on, and get a seat. Sunday night traffic in torrential rain into
Bangkok is snails-paced. Finally about
9am we stop at the southern bus station.
Get a taxi back to the hotel and peel off the wet clothes before heading
out to see if we can find dinner at 10pm in the pouring rain.
