Getting from one place to the other

Small Annoyances While Traveling 

Kevin

Not much to relate travel- wise as we clump our way on the special express train from Chiang Mai to Sukkothai , capital city of an ancient regime. I don't know why it's labeled express since we are stopping at we keep stopping at myriad little towns separated by miles of nothing but exotic foliage. The route is a broad arc that results in our moving away from our destination instead of heading directly at it for a great deal of the trip. That, and the fact that the train can't go over  thirty and  chugs painfully when confronted with a grade adds some time to the journey. 

However, what's special about the train is the fierce strength of the air conditioning . Fruit is imported to the USA from New Zealand with less refrigeration than we are being subjected to. Kate, Nell, and Iris have taken to emptying their luggage (and mine) to layer on clothing that is neither clean nor color-coordinated.

Since this is a six- hour trip, a lot of our time is devoted to planning for and putting off our trips to the tiny bathrooms located at the end of the car. These incredibly tiny "conveniences"(NOT) require much dexterity to since you must open the door, enter the one and a half foot square cabinet and close the door while you avoid either stepping in the hole or being splashed as the train maneuvers around a corner. Exciting news on two fronts: Nell has just returned from such an expedition with e discovery that the toilet on the left has a seat! Kate rushes off and learns  something important too...the contents of the toilet simply flush through the floor onto the tracks.  This fact might account for the fact that the windows are so dirty we can't tell whether the sun is out but I don't want to know if that might be true.

Both these concerns would seem petty considering the beauty of the Thai countryside outside the windows. They also pale in comparison to the lack of comfort one experiences when forced to cram into a local bus for the final leg of the journey. None of these working Thais seemed happy to include tourists with luggage on their hot and crowded trip home from work but like most Thai people,  they were too polite to express their discomfort with the eye rolling or nose snorting we resort to when we confront the inevitable annoyances of travel like making room for the luggage on a local bus or dealing withnJapanese tourists taking pictures of each other taking pictures of each other in front of historical ruins we want to take a picture of.