Trains Trains and More Trains

We have made it to Malaysia in one piece.  Unfortunately I'm not sure our wallets will stay in one piece.  The accommodation is double what we thought we would be paying but I guess it's still cheaper than the Western world.  A room is about $20 here we thought it would be more like $10-$15.  Ahh well such is life.  It took about 33hrs on a train to get from Laos to Malaysia. We are currently in Pulau Langkawi and are going to spend a few days on the beach... if we can sit still that long.

Dec 13 – The train to Bangkok

We booked a train to Bangkok shortly after breakfast.  We had to get more money out of the ATM which is tricky because we don't want any left over kip and we don't want to run out of money for the day. We checked out of our hotel and left our bags their with their left luggage. We went in search of a new book for Beau since he had finished his other one. We refound one of the bookstores we had visited on our last trip to Vientiane. After having book success we went wandering around the city. We went into a department type store and picked up a bunch of travel snacks. We also purchased some little oranges as well, which were delicious! We were being picked up around 3pm to go to the train station. On our way back to the hotel we blew the last of our kip on some nuts keeping aside about 6,000 which we were told we needed for departure tax. We got picked up by a large tuk-tuk and were taken to the train station. We had to go through exit customs there and pay our departure tax. Turns out our departure tax was actually 10,000 kip each not the 3,000 we were told at the travel agency. Lucky for us we still had some small American bills so we could cover the fee. While at the station we ran in Lea again who we met in the 4000 Islands and ran into in Luang Prabang. We took a very short train ride just to cross the boarder where we got off the train to go through Thai entrance customs. This took forever since they only had one window open and there were quite a few of us. We finally made it through customs and boarded the train to Bangkok. The train was very nice, with bunks that fold out. We started all of us sitting in seats but then one of the train employees came through and lowered the upper bunk and set up that bed. Then he folded the seats down, laid out a foam mattress and set up the lower bunk. The bunks were quite spacious although almost too short. Hopefully it won't be a bad nights sleeps.

Beau on the train (seats folded into beds) with our dinner of bread and cheese.

Dec 14 – Bangkok then onwards

We arrived in Bangkok bright and early this morning. As soon as we arrived we looked into a train to Malaysia. We had been contemplating different routes to get there to try to avoid the city of Hat Yai. This city is on a travel advisory, along with the rest of South Western Thailand, due to some unrest with the Muslim groups down there. We were talking with an older American gentleman who had done the same route two weeks before with no trouble. The groups aren't targeting tourists and this is the easiest way to get into Malaysia. We decided to go ahead with this route in spite of the travel advisory. When we tried to book our ticket butthe Malaysian portion was fully booked so we just booked on the same train as far as Hat Yai. We were assured we'd be able to buy a ticket once in Hat Yai. We then had about 6 hours to kill in Bangkok. We found a road side soup shop that served some disappointing, bland soup. After eating we started wandering around the area, there really wasn't much to see near the train station so we went a little further afield towards the river. We found a mall which we wander through but it mostly contained Asian antiques. We continued walking around the city and found ourselves in China town. We had a nice wander around this section then got ourselves some lunch. We picked up more travel snacks and got an Drumstick like ice cream as a treat. We headed back towards the trains station and actually found it with out getting lost. We boarded our new train and left Bangkok around 3pm. It was interesting seeing the outskirts of Bangkok in the day light because you can still see flooded areas. Actually, within Bangkok there were sandbags everywhere and concrete barriers in front of doors to keep the water out. Outside of Bangkok the lower lying areas around the train tracks still held quite a bit of water. It was difficult to tell whether some of these areas were supposed to be ponds or if the water hadn't found a way to drain yet. We ordered dinner on the train which turned out pretty good and was quite tasty. Beau and I had lower bunks again but no one was above us this time.