Bus, Border, Tuk Tuk, Train

After packing our bags and checking out we ventured into the tropical rain. We wanted to exchange some books so we walked to a place we had heard exchanged books. By the time we reached it we were soaked and Kel was muddy up to her ankles. The shop did not exchange books, so we walked back to our hotel.

We had some time to spare so we used the internet and picked up a few things before our bus trip to cross the Thai border. The crossing was the smoothest yet, especially for a land crossing. From the border check in Thailand we had to get a tuk tuk to the train station and were approached by a guy with a pick-up offering a free ride to the tuk tuk (tuk tuks are not allowed to park near the border station). Trusting our Lonely Planet instead of the other tourists getting into the truck we walked 30 metres to a tuk tuk that had just arrived and paid 30 baht to get to the train station. Had we known the train station was only 500 metres away we would have walked especially considering we had 3.5 hours to kill until the train left. We wondered what the other tourists paid when they were probably taken to the pick-up driver's friends' tuk tuks across town. We didn't see them for 20 minutes after we arrived.

We sat and did nothing until our train departed. Well we did what we usually do when we wait, we drank some beer.

The Thai trains are certainly not up to the standard of the chinese trains but they are cleaner and spit and smoke free. The beds are approximately 6 feet long as I had my feet flat on one end and my head was touching the other end. Kel didn't seem to have this problem.