Train Ride to Chiang Mai (1)

As most of you know, I've technically been off of school the whole month of October. The kids didn't come into school the entire month, but I had to show up for work, report cards, and seminars the first 2 weeks of the month. I helped the other teachers finish up their grading and filling out their report cards for the EP grades. Finally, my break started! I was SO excited! Stephanie, Mike, Tatiana, and I had been planning a trip to Chiang Mai for a while. Luckily, Erin and Leah had the same term break as us, so we planned on meeting up with them in Chiang Mai and we all planned on staying together. We were lucky to receive news that we could stay with the pastor of the SDA church there in Chiang Mai for a small fee. This was great because we were already going to be struggling on our small salary after the train tickets there and back. Mike, Tatiana, Stephanie, and I bought our train tickets about 1 week in advance. 

Friday, the 17th, couldn't have come soon enough for us! We were ecstatic and didn't really know what to expect from the train ride. Our train was scheduled to leave at 10pm, and it was 

suggested to us to get there about 1 hour early. Instead of pushing it, we ended up arriving 2 hours early. Most of the seats in the station were

 taken, so we found a nice spot on the ground and made ourselves comfy for an hour and a half. After playing Go Fish for a while, and finding some snacks, we made small talk. Michael made the comment, "Man,

 wouldn't that be awful if we got placed RIGHT NEXT to the bathrooms?" Laughter followed, because, what were the chances this humorous disaster could happen to us? Once it was 9:40, we headed out to our train to board. Luckily, the train was already there and ready for us. We found our car number, and hopped up the steps and looked for our bed numbers. Our beds happened to be the first we ran into. How lucky, right? WRONG. You see, our beds were positioned RIGHT NEXT TO THE BATHROOMS. Yeah, Mike, we're all still a little miffed at you cursing us.....Anywho, we got our bags and things situated. Stephanie and I bought the bottom bunks because they were cheaper, so Mike and Tatiana sat down with us on our bunks for a while chatting and such before they were banished to their caves. 

Fairly soon, the train was in motion. We were fairly excited, but that was not to last long. When I was younger, my grandmother had the belief that everyone needed to experience a train ride, so she took me one day for a train ride. It didn't last too long, and the whole ride was enjoyable. This was in no comparison to the train ride we experienced here in Thailand. First of all, the ride lasted 15 hours too long. Next, our placement, thanks to MIKE,

 was next to the bathrooms. Needless to say, our noses were not too thrilled about that....the aroma of urine and ammonia was all too abundant 90% of the time. YUCK! Also, you'd think that a train ride would be much faster than a bus or car ride, right? Wrong. In Thailand, the train is actually the slower route because of the number of stops they make. I don't know if it was because we were all drifting in and out of sleep, but it seemed like we stopped every 30 minutes to an hour. Another unpleasant thing was the noise. At times it was so loud that my Ipod was on the loudest setting possible, and I could still hear the racket. Argh. But really, I suppose that

's just a train....so I can't complain that much. 

In case you're beginning to worry, let me assure you that we did, indeed, make it to Chiang Mai. We arrived at 1:30 pm on Saturday. We called Leah and Erin, who were already there, and asked them for directions to give our driver. Soon enough, we were on our way. It only took about 15 minutes to get there, and we hopped off and were greeted by our long lost friends!!! It was SO nice to see Erin and Leah. It had been 2 months too long since we had seen them last.