There was plenty of room in the tiny pick-up when we shared it with Ron and Rose but it became downright cozy on Tuesday morning with seven of us and seven backpacks; it is a good thing Pak Chong was only five miles away. They held the 8:30 bus for us so we arrived in Bangkok around eleven.
It took forty-five minutes to travel by tuk-tuk from the bus station to the train station and cost nearly as much as going from Pak Chong to Bangkok. When we realized that there was a direct train to Butterworth, gateway to Penang, we changed our tickets and people watched at the station while saffron robed monks read newspapers and music videos and movie trailers blared from an overhead giant TV.
Second-class sleeper cars in Thailand don’t have cabins, just regular seats that convert to beds and curtains for privacy. We have the lowers and a pair of Buddhist monks has the uppers. Surprisingly we departed exactly at 2:45 then proceeded to creep along through Bangkok. A tuk-tuk with two fat women passed us, so did a motorbike with dozens of colored balloons. After forty minutes we reached a respectable canter then finally a gallop. At this rate it will take forever to reach Malaysia.
After dinner on the train the porter converted the seats to sleeper beds and drew the curtains. The car looked like a scene from a Cary Grant movie. Too bad I forgot my robe and slippers a la C.G. We read for a while, inserted earplugs and actually had a good sleep despite the bumpy ride. When we climbed out for breakfast no one looked as dapper as in the movies. I wonder how you would change into a double-breasted suit in such a cramped space. At breakfast I half expected Hercule Poirot to inform us that Madame Soandso had been murdered and we were all to make ourselves available for questioning. No one was above suspicion, not even the monks.
Entering Malaysia went without a hitch despite the sign defining a “hippie” and denying them entry. I wonder how long that has been around. It took an hour for a Malay engine to hook up and another four hours to reach Butterworth. Once inside Malaysia our “special express” became a local and we had to share our seats with a local family who stared at us in amazement. Malaysians are darker than Thais and they found our blue eyes fascinating. We took the ferry from Butterworth to the former British city of Georgetown on the island of Penang and are staying at the Malaysia Hotel, our first venture into 3-star territory. At 115 ringgits, about $32, it is a little out of our price range but when averaged with our sub-$10 nights it works out OK.
