Quest of naked Eyes: Very Long Journey: Hat Yai-Bangkok (2-end)

Surat Thani, Finally

the story continues here

Finally, Our most awaited time came, train came and we immediately boarded to the train. Since there was seat number, we went to our seat. The Train departed at 1 pm (delayed again after delayed).

The first 30 minutes of the journey by Train was so much fun. The view over the window was good and fortunately, there was no people sitting in front of us, so we could occupy the both sides of seat.Furthermore, we found out that our train would be long and the fun would not be any longer. the Train stopped in ALL STATIONS, small and big stations. That was making this train walk so slowly.

As the train run further up north, the more people coming in. Then the seats around us were fully occupied. We started making conversation with young men in front us using our English. It was not helpful for us to kill the boredom since nobody replied nothing but smiling at us. Okay, we decided to not continue the conversation. The train continued running and stopping in each station. So frustrating but no other things to do expect sleeping, awaking, sleeping again, stretching the body, walking a bit. Yeah, then we arrived Terribly late, the clocked ticked at 9-ish pm (GMT +7, not GMT +8 anymore).

As we were super late (but we used to it since we are Indonesian. So, we were okay. One of our advantage of being Indonesian in terms of flexibility of time, we would not complaining a lot). We started looking at the schedule board again, then we found out that there were several foreigners waiting for train to bangkok too. I personally was very happy to see it. After long discussion with Candra (it was kind of wasting time since we discussed nothing except the one who should go to ticket counter). I then should go to the counter. I asked the officer there and She said that all the tickets to bangkok for that night were sold out (since the only trains would leave that night only special express which was expensive for us). I came to Candra and we discussed again about this (although we found out our long discussion was wasting time again). The only option for us was to stay over night in Surat Thani (which is unplanned) and wait the train for tomorrow.

We were hungry (again). We walked outside the station and started wondering around to find restaurant open in this late (10 pm already and it was completely dark and quite around the station). We were hopeless to find restaurant open and we were very tired to walk against the station. We fortunately found out the street vendor selling heavy meals for us. We came there and started asking what they cooked. It was something like Tom Yam and Fried Rice. Candra worried about pork contains in their food. He ordered and asked thme to not use pork in the soup. And what Did I do?? I did nothing, i did not order any since i didn't want spend money and i was kinda run out of penny. We (only candra actually) enjoyed the foods, then we walked to find any convenience store to find any drink or snacks. We turned and found two convenient stores with has different brand name, 7-Eleven and Family Mart. I turned into Family mart side since i was walking in that side. I was so lazy to cross the street to go to 7-Eleven. We bought some from that store (including Thai SIM Card for both of us). I finally could enjoy my meal (it was just small bread with custard inside costing me 10 THB and a bottle water). We finished 'enjoying' the night and came back to station. I asked the foreigners there and they mostly already had ticket on their hand since they booked earlier. I was no more happy finding out that they already had it hehehhe.

I decided to take cheapest class again to go to bangkok, and the decision went to Rapid Train (it is named rapid with ordinary seat). Candra kept insisting me to use better class, but i warned him again that he could go by that class but i would not join. Again, that warning was enough to shut him up of complaining. We bought ticket to venture to Bangkok scheduled at 16.47 pm NEXT DAY for 217 THB, not bad price..

NEXT DAY??? What??? yeah, no option! Candra again asked me to find out hotel out there, and i again told him that no budget for that. Then he stayed with me eventually hehehe. We slept in the train station in Surat Thani (We thought that we would be alone there, but there Was some locals (again, no foreigners) doing the same, and some homeless people). I didn't care about my belongings but my documents and camera. We finally could sleep beautifully in train station and we wake up next day with painful back, neck, entire body felt so bad hehehe.

We knew that our train would depart at 16.47. Then we had enough time to explore the city. Hell no!! Yeah We had enough time, but not enough money to do that. But we should go outside from train station or die getting bored there. We needed breakfast for the morning since I only had bread in night as dinner. We started walking and exploring the city. We thought that the city was small enough to walk. As we walked,w e found out some restaurants opened and We stopped in the restaurant selling porridge, thai porridge. It reminded us for a minute about Typically Indonesian breakfast, Porridge with chicken. We entered the restaurant and started ordering. We knew that the porridge used Pork on it, so Candra could not eat that porridge, But yeahhh I could consume that (Thanks God, I could eat pork hehehe ). I ordered The porridge and Candra order Noodle with soup and some savory snacks. The Porridge was spectacular, it was so delicious. It contained cut pork and some basil with some thai spices. Actually, we planned to find KFC there, based on Google Maps we could go for 1 more kilometer, but we surrendered eventually.

While we were eating, we asked to use the power socket to charge our phone. We ate the meals a bit long to wait the charging. about 45 Minutes, we finished and paid to the seller and say 'khap khun khrap -thank you in thai'. We took our phone (we would not forget that) and got going from the restaurant. We walked as the morning started leaving. We met the monks walking around the streets (they are kids, so they might be monk student). We saw a big building (not really big just occupied with large yard). We crossed the underpass bridge to go to that place hoping that we would find something wonderful or unique out there.

It was then a school, an abandoned school probably since there was no activity. We saw further there was crowd nearby. We went there and yeah, there crowd was there (not out there anymore). There were many food stalls opening and there was a hall where everybody (not everybody, but the main attraction I guessed) looked at. We were there and we didn't want to miss this opportunity to see the city's 'attraction'. First we had no idea what happened there (I knew then when i arrived in Bangkok). So, the visualization is There were many boys waiting in line, Polices, and some people sitting calling the name of the boy there. The boy looked alike criminals with some of them had tattoos all over their body. I thought that they might do some criminals.

We had no idea, and kept asking people what it was and again none knew english. Then we just left them and went to wander around again. Eventually, we stopped again in that school and did not do anything. That day was super hot, and Bags were with us and appropriate sleep in station made us (only me I think) sleep in front of school. It reached midday already and we were hungry, we went to the crowd again, not to see but to buy food since there were abundant food stalls there. I stopped in cheap stall who offered me 'Pad kra Pao (a typical thai food, stir-fried pork with basil leaves and rice obviously) just for 20 THB. Okay, I decided to bought that but Candra couldn't buy that, he bought rice with chicken. The taste was so so, enough to fill empty stomach. We went to the 'main attraction' to figure out what it was. We kept guessing what it was, and eventually our guesses were totally wrong.

It was 2 pm and we came back to Station to wait there. Before reaching station, we saw good restaurant with many foreigners come in and it had wi-fi. Yeah, we decided to wait train in that small restaurant. Since it was free wi-fi, we had to pay more for so-so food. I ordered pancake costing 80 THB (Much more expensive than my breakfast). Candra ordered for coffee. We enjoyed the good wi-fi there owing the whole table for about 2 hours before coming back to Station.

The time came there, train came at 5 pm, and we were scheduled to arrive in Bangkok at 5.05 am NEXT DAY. So it was kind of OVERNIGHT TRAIN. and we were seated along the way, not slept!

The journey was better than before, train just stopped in certain station, BUT it stopped for about 30 minutes in Hua Hin and Prachuap Kirikhan (i hope i spelled correctly), total it stopped for 1 hour for those two big stations where i could see foreigners joined us in cheap train.

We had nothing to do along the way again. It was totally boring! No entertainment for us! Just Both of us and Train's sound. We starred over the window and it was completely dark, nothing interesting!

We arrived in Bangkok at about 7 am, and we seemed reveal happiness! WELCOME TO KRUNG THEP (Thai name for Bangkok).

This experience earned me a lot! I am proud of being Indonesian after all. To Be Indonesian is not that bad as we think. You will earn a lot of 'immunity' once you go out there! And for sure, I am lucky to have this experience while i am young since i have more energy to do that! Going backpacker with this condition may not good (even for me) but it had a lot of memories I will keep till i can open it.

See you in other journey stories!