The longest day

It was a long day. First up in Malaysia, a one hour cab ride to the airport. Then another 2 hours messing about at the airport before the plane took off. The flight itself took another 2 hours and by the time we reached the taxi rank at Bangkok airport it was dark.

The plan.....get a train or bus straight to Khon Kaen in North East Thailand without staying over in Bangkok. It was 6pm. A phone call to Bangkok's Hualamphong railway station confirmed that a sleeper train was departing at 8.30pm so we jumped in a taxi and asked him to get us there in time.

We made it with plenty of time to spare and I was feeling smug about how smoothly things had gone when I spied the train carriage. The train carriage with lots of hard wooden seats and *no sleeper bunks*.

I knew then we were in for a night of hell and had to be dragged kicking and screaming on to the train. The look of horror remained on my face until dawn, literally frozen on, as temperatures during that 9 hour journey almost reached freezing.

Just as the train was getting close to our destination and the air was warming up a little, some old Irish bastard from the first class car walked past on the way to the breakfast car and remarked "you won't make that mistake again will you". Lucky for him, I couldn't find anything heavy to throw at him.