Chiang Mai to Lopburi, Thailand

Saturday, May 3, 08
8:45 - Good-bye to Chiang Mai.
My new day pack is going to be more functional than my other. Security is always an issue. This one has double zippers which can be locked nicely.
This 3 car train has the appearance of a commuter. I am in the first car and can see into the driving compartments - 2 drivers separated by a walkway and door out the front. Rolling up the aisle comes a hostess pushing a cart with coffee, water and orange juice. Jerk, jerk, sway! Ticket please, I imagine that's what the controller says. The hostess asks and I point to orange juice. A cake and fruit filled pastry come with it. I must be in the rich car. She opens the door to the driver's booths and I see 1/4" of water standing between them in the small walkway - rain water. The windshield wipers aren't helping much. But, a train doesn't need what a car does. The one driver asks for coffee, stands and passes the hostess walking to the rear. The other driver also stands, turns to the hostess and waits for her to pour his drink. Who's driving this thing? Barreling along. Coffee is transferred and the driver returns to his duties. No worries! I must say that he did glance once over his shoulder while the coffee was being poured. I can read the speedometer to the upper right of the driver, 90 km/hr - not for long. Water from the driver's compartment is finding its way down the center aisle of the car. A custodian moves it along. Later, he returns with a mop. This is a wonderful car. I can look out the side window or stand and see what's coming up front. The toilet also comes with a large, open window to the outside. There's a fine view in and out.
Traveling through forested hills, past Doi In, Thailand's highest peak (2565 m) enshrouded in clouds.
The driver's control station has his buttons, levers, and gauges. On the left side are a cup of coffee and a roll of toilet paper - seems right!
It turns out that the man on the left is not a driver. His job is passing or hooking a metal cable, tear shaped with a pouch on the pointed end, into a crook at a station and retrieving a similar one as we pass. All this at 40 km/hr. What is being transferred? I ask but no one can tell me. I also witnessed this on the Malaysia trains. When the hooking man comes through, I ask him. No English! Drat!
The hostess, immediately after serving the snack, has curled up on a double seat and pulled a blanket over herself.
In Lampang, 10:40, we switch driver and hooker. This will happen 2 other times during the ride. Custodian again mops the floor.
I smell food! Yep, our hostess is back on the job, 11:30. OK, now I know I'm in first class, even though my ticket reads 2nd. Lunch is rice, chicken, cucumber, and tapioca.
The landscape is still hills but with dense bamboo forests. No sign of humans except for a grove of bananas, occasionally. Bamboo, bamboo... Fog dips over the hill top creating an eerie ghostness.
Then, habitations, some flamboyant type trees. That fast, we're past, at 40 km/hr. This seems to be the speed through the hills.
At Pha Khan station butterflies dominate the scene; white, white/black, yellow, circling, landing, fluttering overhead, on orange, purple and pink flowers.
Bamboo! Occasionally a red muddy vehicle road parallels us. Gone! No vehicles spotted.
Tethered water buffalo, cattle and rice paddies greet our entrance into a valley and suggest a town. A muddy river flows past as we are again in the forested hills. Rain has long ago left us with only heavy clouds. The sun has been refused so far today.
Flatland and rice paddies. This will be the scenery till Lopburi.
Ah, broken sunshine.
The smell of Tiger Balm, think Vicks, fills the car as someone applies it against sand fleas. Mine is in my big backpack, someplace.
Arriving in Lopburi in darkness, 6:45, ( I dislike arriving when it's dark. It's disorienting.) I walk the one street town and find the hotel I'm looking for - Nett Hotel. I ask the desk manager, a young man in his early 20s, for a look at the room. 211 turns out to be one flight up with private bathroom and 160B/night. The room is agreeable enough till I spot our winged SE Asian friend making a dash for cover under a small table. I take a swipe but the cockroach makes his escape. Yes, I'll take the room on the condition that he sprays it down. He agrees! With hunger eating at me, I walk 4 blocks, back to the main street, for something cooked at one of the stands. Young helper searches for the spray.