Don't Have A Cow

The alarm goes off and we jump out of bed and begin getting everything ready for leaving Bangkok. It was early and we were still sleepy from the night before, but we managed to get some breakfast down us and grab a taxi to the train station, with plenty of time to spare before it was due to depart. I say “due to depart” because as we had quickly realised, the trains in Thailand never seemed to run on time or get in to their destinations at the scheduled time. But this one pulled in at 8:00am and we boarded soon after. We were to leave at 8:30am, but never really believed that it would happen, until the train sluggishly lumbered out of the station bang on time.

We had a 12 hour journey ahead of us, leaving at 8:30am and arriving into Chiang Mai at 8:30pm. We had organised everything to make the trip as comfortable as possible – all iPods, phones and netbooks were fully charged and we both had books to read also. Not long after departing Bangkok we stopped, for about 10 minutes. And then pulled away. And then stopped for another 10 minutes. And so on, and so on, but we finally built up some speed and were off. Much like on a long-haul flight an attendant came round with a trolley and gave us a free meal. And when I say “meal” I mean a weird banana-filled bun and a small lime-green coloured spongecake. But it was food and we were hungry, so it went down a treat.

Mmmmm, brunch!

After a couple of sleeps and a few episodes of The Mighty Boosh on the netbook it was time for another meal. This time it was some kind of battered chicken in sauce with rice on the side. Not bad, but not very filling. We both left the weird green dessert. Then, before we knew it, she was coming round again with the banana bun and this time a fruit pastry thing. Not bad for £15. As our food was settling we made ourselves comfortable and watched the scenery changing from the shanty huts of Bangkok into the lush jungle of the north.

We knew we would be getting in late to Chiang Mai, that was certain. It was already past half 8 in the evening and there was no sign of us getting near to Chiang Mai, even though we had a slight panicky moment when we arrived at Mae Chang, but always really knew that it couldn’t be our stop. It was getting later and later, and we knew we would be getting near. And then there was a small thud that jolted the carriage slightly. The train slowed, but it looked like we were getting near to our destination so we thought nothing of it. The train had slowed to a crawl…… and then stopped.

This was nothing new as we often stopped in between train stations. However, we had been there for a while before the engines started up again, revved a lot, but didn’t move the train forward at all. This was repeated on a number of occasions, with no success. Then, something terrible happened. The train began moving backwards. This wasn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world as we had seen this before on Thai train journeys, but it seemed to be going back quite a long way. So far back in fact that we ended up at the station we had just passed through and came to a halt. A few engineers and guards had been walking up and down the carriage since the thud, and the jumped off and went to the front of the train. This did not sound good. Not good at all. I was expecting an announcement to say everyone would have to get off the train and wait for another one to arrive. Something had gone terribly wrong with this one and it didn’t look like we would be going any further any time soon.

It had been 9:45pm when the thud had occurred and it was now pushing 11pm. There had been no clarification of what had happened, nobody had updated us at all. The loud Aussie guy walking through the carriage had been and got a diagnosis – we had hit a cow. The stupid thing had been standing on the line as our train had hit it at pretty much full speed, and it had broken the chain or the gearing that allowed us to go forwards. We waited on the train whilst they attempted to fix it, by jacking it up and trying to attach another gearing system. Eventually, we heard someone shout “all aboard” and everyone who had been watching the repairs, smoking a cigarette or taking pictures of the bush jumped back onto the train and waited with baited breath.

Fixing the train, no sign of the cow though...

The engines revved. The train pulled forwards, slowly at first, and then began to gather speed. Once it seemed like we were well and truly on our way some passengers gave a round of applause while others simply gave a huge sigh of relief. We were back online.

We finally arrived in Chiang Mai at 12:30am, a full 16 hours after we had left Bangkok. We were both pretty knackered and really wanted to just get to the hotel and catch some sleep. We negotiated a fare of 80 Baht with a tuk-tuk and were there in a few minutes time. The place looked nice, and at £6 each a night it was certainly going to please our wallets.