Things to like about travelling on the Thai train system.
Thai trains are reliably unreliable add 1-1 1/2 hours per four hours timetabled.
Monkeys
Third class is best for tourists - no air conditioning, so open windows which permit photography; everything moving so slowly, and stopping so often that there is time for it.
Herons/cranes/egrets/other small wading, long legged birds (named, in honour of Pete Groves famous universal bird naming system* - wading chaffinches)
*["There are only two types of birds: chaffinches, and web-footed chaffinches"]
Bright birds [scarlet wings, black body] or [blur of bright blue wings batting like hell for a banana grove] - parakeets/parrots/macaws (or all of these only found in the true home of the weird and the wonderful, South America?) - bright chaffinches
Banana hedged rice paddies
Vendors continually working the passengers to sell their fruit, or sweets, or drinks, or cooking ingredients (mainly today spring onions)
Man working rice paddy in a traditional "coolie" hat
Nut palms
Thirty nine variants of plants I've never seen before
Meticulously trimmed station gardens, full of tropical plants
Fist sized fuschia flowers - but none variegated
Hibiscus acting like a weed
Acres of faintly pink lotuses
Acres of bright red water lilies/lotuses(?)
Spoon and straight billed, large and small, multiple varieties of wading chaffinches
School kids using the train as their commute from school, or scout group, or guide group
Wats like explosions of joy in their colour, decoration and vibrancy
Priority seating areas labelled "For monks, the disabled, pregnant women, and elderly citizens" - always in that order
Water buffalo
Thai cattle
Station labelling which gives not only the name of the station you are at, but also the name and distance of the preceding and succeeding stations (and if there is a junction both arms of the junction)
Trains rung out from the station by the manual ringing of a large, highly polished, brass bell.
Single plants that have decided today is the day, to deck themselves out in their best floral finery
Ramshackle jollity and camaraderie
Vendors who are murderously quick at ripping off the struggling non-Thai traveller - prices going up 10 fold between two breaths
The feeling that timetables are all very well, and they do show we tried, but.....
The honesty of the arrival and departure boards; which have columns (for arrivals): arrival time, delay, real arrival time (and corresponding columns for the departures board)
Thai trains are reliably unreliable add 1-1 1/2 hours per four hours timetabled.
Monkeys
Third class is best for tourists - no air conditioning, so open windows which permit photography; everything moving so slowly, and stopping so often that there is time for it.
Herons/cranes/egrets/other small wading, long legged birds (named, in honour of Pete Groves famous universal bird naming system* - wading chaffinches)
*["There are only two types of birds: chaffinches, and web-footed chaffinches"]
Bright birds [scarlet wings, black body] or [blur of bright blue wings batting like hell for a banana grove] - parakeets/parrots/macaws (or all of these only found in the true home of the weird and the wonderful, South America?) - bright chaffinches
Banana hedged rice paddies
Vendors continually working the passengers to sell their fruit, or sweets, or drinks, or cooking ingredients (mainly today spring onions)
Man working rice paddy in a traditional "coolie" hat
Nut palms
Thirty nine variants of plants I've never seen before
Meticulously trimmed station gardens, full of tropical plants
Fist sized fuschia flowers - but none variegated
Hibiscus acting like a weed
Acres of faintly pink lotuses
Acres of bright red water lilies/lotuses(?)
Spoon and straight billed, large and small, multiple varieties of wading chaffinches
School kids using the train as their commute from school, or scout group, or guide group
Wats like explosions of joy in their colour, decoration and vibrancy
Priority seating areas labelled "For monks, the disabled, pregnant women, and elderly citizens" - always in that order
Water buffalo
Thai cattle
Station labelling which gives not only the name of the station you are at, but also the name and distance of the preceding and succeeding stations (and if there is a junction both arms of the junction)
Trains rung out from the station by the manual ringing of a large, highly polished, brass bell.
Single plants that have decided today is the day, to deck themselves out in their best floral finery
Ramshackle jollity and camaraderie
Vendors who are murderously quick at ripping off the struggling non-Thai traveller - prices going up 10 fold between two breaths
The feeling that timetables are all very well, and they do show we tried, but.....
The honesty of the arrival and departure boards; which have columns (for arrivals): arrival time, delay, real arrival time (and corresponding columns for the departures board)