[roamer]

Anyone got any experience of it?

Assume time not an issue and a willingness to
pay for 1st class tickets, would you recommend it?

Good way of getting to and seeing parts of Thailand or not.

Hardly ever see it mentioned on forums.

[ferocious]

i looked at it last xmas bkk-chiang mai overnight train for a change but couldn't see the point of being stuck on a train for 10 hours when i was only there 3 week , but i would re-consider if i was on a longer jaunt and wasn't bothered about missing a night out

[Capt Magoo]

I did some research on train travel but hell if I can find the sites I found helpful... it's hell getting old(right Winnie??) I will search some more and find them for you. In the mean time I did find this site that allows you to input departure and arrivals citys, date of travel. It will give you seat availability........ only downside you have to be able to read thai,

http://www.railway.co.th/seatcheck2/aseat.asp


All the best,

Magoo

[tom]

It's a great way of getting around (and is as cheap as chips - even for 1st Class) if you have a bit of time or using the overnight services to save a bit of cash on travel/accommodation costs.

Kanchanaburi Bridge (River Kwai) to Nam Tok is only a couple of hours and gives you time to see the cemeteries and take in the sort of conditions the POWs (and local labour) had to work in. As has been mentioned, Chiang Mai is worth the overnight trip and the southern line takes in Hua Hin, Chumphon (for Koh Tao) and Surathani (for Koh Samui).

The best site by far to start reading up is seat61 ..... it also covers the other countries in the region.


Seat61 - Thailand

[roamer]

Originally Posted by tom

It's a great way of getting around (and is as cheap as chips - even for 1st Class) if you have a bit of time or using the overnight services to save a bit of cash on travel/accommodation costs.
...........



The best site by far to start reading up is seat61 ..... it also covers the other countries in the region.


Seat61 - Thailand

Thanks tom,good link

Given enough time the journey from Kuala Lumpur
or Penang to Bangkok sounds good(or the other way around of course), enjoyed the couple of travellers tales on this link,same site but starting from
Singapore/Malaysia, "The Jungle Line " and
"Butterworth to Bangkok"

"Traveller Henrik Meurs took the slow train from Gemas to Wakaf Bahru. "The trip on the Jungle Railway to Kota Bahru is one of the most beautiful train trips possible. The scenery can only be described as breathtaking. There are quite a few stops during the first two or three hours. After that, villages become rare and the train starts climbing the first flat mountains. From then on we enjoyed endless views over primary rain forest, large trees interrupted by exuberant plants and monkeys at play. After 4 or 5 hours, when you just start to think that you might have seen all the wonders the Malaysian jungle has to offer, the train enters the mountains. Words fail me to describe the beauty of the scenery of these two or three hours during which the engine pulls you through the mountains topped with rain-forest, over wooden bridges and through narrow gorges. The fare was just 21 Ringgit, about $5..!" Pictured: Jungle Line scenery. Photo courtesy of Hendrik Meurs.

Unlike the modern Malaysian trains on the direct sleeper trains to/from Singapore and KL, slow train 91/92 is old and basic, but the ride more than makes up for this. There is plenty of local transport available from Khota Bahru to the Thai frontier at Sungai Kolok. Train times from Sungai Kolok to Bangkok are shown on the Thailand page under 'Bangkok to Southern Thailand'.
Traveller's reports - Butterworth to Bangkok:

Traveller Sheena Clowes reports from regular journeys between Singapore, KL, Penang and Bangkok: I am an older lady who loves to travel alone and overland, so here are some recent pointers for added comfort for these journeys which I have made many times over the past few years, most recently today from Butterworth-Bangkok. First of all, the Internasional Ekspress (Butterworth-Penang) is late both leaving and arriving around 20% of the time. Be prepared for it, not stressed by it. For instance, it left yesterday at 15.45 instead of 14.20, and arrived in Bangkok at just before 2pm today. But even with my delaying for a cup of good coffee at the station in Bangkok, I was checking into my hotel at 2.45pm - I wouldn't be checking into a city-centre hotel 45 minutes after landing at Bangkok international airport, would I!?

Take some water and a light snack - biscuits, maybe - for the first few hours of the Internasional Ekspress when there is no restaurant car. If you forget, you can get food at the bus station just a short distance from the train station, or if you are coming from Georgetown, at the stalls at the jetty there. The Internasional Ekspress carries local passengers without reservations between the first station after Butterworth to the last station before Thailand, and all stations in between, so don't spread your belongings out too much, you will end up with them all on your lap soon enough! If you travel on the newer 2nd class sleepers - the ones made by Daewoo in South Korea - there are two washbasins outside the toilets, very handy for cleaning teeth etc in the morning. There is also usually hot drinking water available at the end of the 2nd class sleeper for making tea, instant noodles, re-heating baby food etc. In the centre of these coaches there is an electricity point where you can recharge your phone. Make friends with the people sitting there, to keep an eye on it, and only take as long as you need (it doesn't need to be fully charged for a quick phone call) as other people need to charge their phones, too.

The lower berth on the Internasional Ekspress's newer 2nd class sleepers offers an unprecedented (in my experience) amount of space as it is a full metre wide. The size of the berth, and the way the curtains hang around them, and their length, means that even an arthritic old woman like me can change clothes in privacy and rearrange her overnight case. I find that lying along the length of the carriage in this type of berth much more conducive to a sound night's sleep that lying across the width of it, as is often the case in sleepers. If you like to read in bed, take a booklight or head torch, and that if you need pitch darkness for sleeping, take some sort of eyeshade. You only get one pillow per berth, so fold up some soft clothing if you like your head higher. Spare pillows are not carried, so if all berths are full there will be none to spare. The cotton blanket that you are issued with is freshly-laundered and I find gives just the right degree of cosiness when wearing a T-shirt and cotton trousers. Some people are too cold - the air-conditioning is fairly fierce - and need to put on more clothes to keep warm! If you don't want an Asian breakfast or a rather strange Western breakfast, you can just buy a cup of coffee for 20 baht. It's instant but good and hot and strong, just the ticket with a couple of Malaysian "breakfast biscuits" and a carton of yoghurt you bought the previous day in Butterworth or Georgetown. The food offered by the "Bogie Restaurant" (orders taken after crossing the border; dinner is served after Hat Yai and breakfast at whatever reasonable hour people are getting up) is generally very good if you like Thai food.

The restlessness of the southern provinces of Thailand is evidenced by the armed guards on the train overnight and a policeman patrols the sleeper coaches randomly through the night - in stocking feet! However, I have never been aware of any problems in the border areas while I have been travelling."

http://www.seat61.com/Malaysia.htm#Fares

[bigphill67]

Originally Posted by The best site by far to start reading up is seat61 ..... it also covers the other countries in the region.


[URL="http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm"

Seat61 - Thailand[/url]

cheers tom good site thinking of going to penang malaysia for a couple of nights next trip might take overnight train from bangkok to butterworth thanks again

[kuranda_bagman]

Thanks Tom - Thats a great link mate

[Mirkwood]

I've only been on a Thai train the once.

Never again. I'd rather hammer nails in my feet.

Pikey Tony and my good self got stuck in Surin. No buses for days and we'd had enough. We went to the train station on the off chance and asked about a ticket to Bangkok. The bloke behind the desk told us they only had 1st class left and showed us a photo of the carriage. While it didn't look 5* it did look decent enough.

300 baht?????????

We thought it was too good to be true.

Well it was.

When the train pulled up we got the guard to show us our carriage.
My god. When we got on it was rammed and I mean rammed with people. We were squashed in the gangway standing up with our cases between our legs. The toilet cubicle was overflowing and running down the floor and Thai's were laying in it fast asleep. There were people under all the seats as well as squashed together on top of them.

We looked at each other and knew we'd made a massive mistake. 10 hours to Bangkok as well and it was a night train so you couldn't even look out the window.
After about an hour the guard pushed his way through checking tickets. When he saw we were '1st class' he shoved 3 Thai's off one of the seats and sat us down. It was only slightly better. I wish I had some pictures now but at the time I was in shock. It was roasting on there as well.

We agreed as soon as we got to a station we'd heard of we were bailing out and paying a private taxi to drive us to Pattaya even if it cost 10,000 baht.

The train just went on and on.
We were busted to the max. Some bloke came round selling bottles of Mekon and we decided to down one each and hope we woke up in Bangkok. The bastard selling them tried to kick us up the nuts for 300 a small bottle so we blanked him.

We'd left Surin at around 10pm and it was something like 4pm before we got to Korat. By then we had tombstones in our eyes and decided to sit it out to Bangkok.

The final kick in the teeth was being turfed out at Bangkok only to find it wasn't in Central. It looked like somewhere on the road to Pattaya from old airport.

We just hailed a meter and paid whatever. 2000 I think.

Apart from that it was great.

[tom]

Originally Posted by Mirkwood

300 baht?????????

We thought it was too good to be true.

Well it was.

Mirky,

I used to think that you were just unlucky .............

[woodman2]

Originally Posted by Mirkwood

When the train pulled up we got the guard to show us our carriage.My god. When we got on it was rammed and I mean rammed with people. We were squashed in the gangway standing up with our cases between our legs. The toilet cubicle was overflowing and running down the floor and Thai's were laying in it fast asleep. There were people under all the seats as well as squashed together on top of them.

Sounds a lot like Leeds to Kings Cross. Except the fare.