Travelling in Thailand with your Inuit parks or want to shock your respiratory system by a totally unnatural contrast between the outside and inside?

Choose airconditioned cars on Thai railway!

I had two choices getting from Surin to Hualomphong ...

1. Third class

Pros

- More pretty girls

- Hang out with workingclass Thais

Cons

- might get old cars with uncomforable wooden seats?

- Cannot reserve specific seat or even sest at all in advance?

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II. Second class

Pros

- Practice your Tsechiew Chinese

- Good for transporting meats, dairy and root vegetsbles

Cons

- F%&*#@g freezing

- Cannot purchase from station vendors (maybe I am confused with India)

China has opened up railways to some limited market economy rail service on some lines as private enterprise can do anything the state attempts better. Why hasn't Thai gov't done this (well, it has with a ritzy Orient Express to Singapore for people whose money is burningba hole in their pockets).. In China I took an overnightbtrain trip from Kunming to Hekou in the 1990s. MUCH better value (though not cheap) than state railway.

India has the same welfate state mentality when it comes to trains. The cars I took in 1981 are the very same ones I get to use today. Crappy. Why not increase prices and improve quality of services, especially permit COMPETITION.

Suggestions:

- If you travel AC wear long pants, long sleeves, earmuffs and a turtle neck sweater (yes, I know it's crazy but I am serious)

- ask attendant who is curled up on the pile of blanketd, reading a comic book, using a blanket himself, if you can have one of the sealed packages of towels. Put it around your beck and shoulders. Later ask for another one, telling him you are freezing. Put that one around your knees.

- Travel third class

- Take the bus if there is any company with a reasonable temperature

I could not find any temperature controls, the attendant was doing no attending, and I couldn't move to the next warmer AC car as seats were taken, so I figured I'd use my fallback stategy.: go sit in the dining car and enjoy what rail travel is all about: leisurely travel. But unlike night train there is none. The reason I didn't take night train was because with the rocking I find it impossible to sleep so I waste a day of business travel slerpimg next day in hotel at destination.

In defence of the Royal Thai Railway I must add that someone ajusted the freezer or after a few hours it calms down to less than Antarctic temperatures.

I ordered train food 'khao pat pak sai khai'. I never thought to specify 'je' or mangsaviirat. It came with three slices of dead pig on the edges.