Travel Tips

After waiting for our train for about a half hour, we finally got off to Hua Hin, barely.

Just a few moments before, while we were just sitting on a bench, we were confronted by the strangest Thai person we met on our journey. This guy who was dressed in what we at first thought was a policemans uniform, came up to my brother and just started talking to him. This wasn't bad but after I looked at this guy closer I could see that his gun was plastic and fake (you could see the seam in the plastic). He must of had not only a police badge on his shirt, but also every other badge/pin attached to his shirt that you could think of. To top it off he even had a pot leaf pin on his collar. Shortly after this, his one sided conversation (he spoke no english) with my brother turned a little nasty. He began getting louder and waving his arms around and pointing at the sky. At this point my brother and I didn't know what to expect and were preparing for the worst. As it turned out the guy started yelling at both of us and walked away.

This needless to say was quite a way to start off our train ride. We were told by some workers on the train, that the guy was a"little crazy", not that we couldn't already guess that. I wish I could have tried to get a picture of this guy to show everybody, but who knows he may have "shot" us with his raygun/water pistol, whatever it was.

Here is a photo of what our train looked like. It wasn't bad except for the fact it was suppose to be a first class, air conditioned train. We had arranged this in Ko Lanta and were surprised once we found out it was not what we paid for.

We met this guy just after we first boarded the train and got our seats. He passed by us a few times while my brother and I played cards and enjoyed some Chang (beer). While we were playing poker he noticed our Canadian coins that we had on the table, shortly after he sat down and talked with us. His wife collected coins so I gave him some to give to her.
Needless to say we didn't have any problems with security after this, as well it made for a decent picture with my brother.
****Sorry picture is fuzzy the train was bumpy.****

My brother had never played poker before, so I tried to remember the rules and teach him.
The cards almost blew outside the window a few times, but it was something to do to pass the time.

Little did I know that he would have beginners luck and go on to beat me. The good part about this is we switched to playing with baht and I only lost 30 (about 1 dollar CDN). We also managed to kill about four hours of the train ride doing this.

While we were going through Surat Thani train station, I snapped a shot of this market just off the train tracks. Its too bad we couldn't have gotten out and looked at it, but we were just passing by.

I had to be quick with this one, but it is a little temple tucked away in the trees. I think this was near the halfway part of the train ride.

After our long train ride we finally arrived at Hua Hin at about 3:00am. We returned to the station during the day and it was quite a nice building to see, and it looked like it was constructed some time ago.

After seaching around Hua Hin for a place to stay, we came across a guesthouse. We were able to settle in, for what turned out to be, a peacful end to our trip.