Today we moved from Ayuttaya to Pitsanoulok (p-lok), six hours due
north by train. We woke up and ate an underwhelming breakfast at a
nearby western-catering restaurant. We usually regret eating at these
types of places, they are run by Thais, but their thai fare is
lacking. My rice soup was basically rice in hot water, sans spices.
Then we hit the market on the way to the train station. We wanted to
stock up on food for the six hour train ride. We bought a bunch of
bananas and a kilo of "long klongs" - we don't know enough Thai to
convince them to sell us less. We couldn't find much else in the way
of packable food, a lot of the market was raw meat, bleck. Or still
live animals waiting for you to butcher them, eels and frogs and fish.
We managed to get on the train on time - there is only one train, on
it's way north from Bangkok, so if we had missed it, we would have
been stuck in Ayuttaya for another night, but we didn't so all was
right with the world.
At least that's what we thought as the train pulled up. When we
stepped onto the train, we realized we were in for quite a ride. I
don't think they cap the number of tickets they sell, so the train was
jammed to overflowing. There were no seats, no aisle room to stand in.
We in fact ended up standing between two cars, squishing out of the
way every two minutes as vendors wanted to pass. That's right. We are
packed like sardines, yet food and drink vendors were continually
needling through the aisles to hawk their vittles. It was comical, I
had to laugh lest I get annoyed at having to move and squeeze and
shove for six hours!!
Thankfully a few hours into the ride, there was a mass exodus and we
were able to snag two seats together. We sat next to a friendly woman
and her sleeping mother. She taught me some fruit names and even how
to correctly pronounce "mang saw ee lat" = vegetarian! We slept some,
looked out the windows, watched the vendors pass, etc etc.
Yesterday we fell in love with riding the train, today we fell out of
love and then back in again. Yesterday's ride was idyllic, quick, easy
and not crowded. Today was the exact opposite and was off-putting at
first, but as the hours wore by it sort of grew on me. I enjoyed
getting to be one of two farangs in a sea of Thais, just going about
their lives.
Our initial plan was to get off the train in P-lok and get a bus to
Sukothai, but the train didn't get in until 6:45, after the last bus.
So we had to stay the night here. Not all bad - we ate good market
food for dinner and are staying in the nicest accommodation yet, damn
close to hotel standards - we even have a tv!!! Oh and there are three
electricity plugs without even unplugging said tv! Hot water too. We
opted for a single bed to make it a little cheaper, the single is
still about a twin and a half wide - plenty of room for a one night
stand. And breakfast is included. All around a long, but manageable
day and tomorrow we will arrive early to Sukothai.
27 min.
2 comments:
Surely it'll be worth the extra minutes when you can read them all again later.
I have a request. Can you show us some Thai-only foods/veggies/fruits and teach us their names?
You propose and even better game than "translate Thai kitchen's menu"! I will work on pictures and descriptions at the next market we visit. We often eat very repetitively at restaurants (curry, noodles, stir-fries or soups), but at a market there are all sorts of interesting things. I will probably start with fruits and veggies because I know some of the words for those. The deserts or sweet things are quite difficult because they are seemingly always different. Thanks for the challenge. If you have other great ideas, please share!
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