Rail Returns

Slow, refined and endlessly scenic: Writer Elli Stühler takes us through Thailand by train.

I don’t have many rules for travel, but there’s one I try to keep: take fewer short-haul domestic flights. It’s informed by a sense of duty to the environment and my growing exhaustion at the prospect of flying. With train travel, there’s no need to arrive hours in advance or decant your toiletries into tiny bottles. The romance of rail holds strong.

I’m not the only one wising up to this: More and more sleeper services are linking disparate points on the map with new connections. The new European Sleeper connects Berlin via Amsterdam to Brussels. In Mexico, the Tren Maya, due to launch in December, will run along a 950-mile route, transporting travelers from tourist hubs like Cancún to cultural sites in the region.

In Europe, where I live, my travel rule has become an endless source of adventure. I’ve voyaged from Berlin to Bologna, watching Alpine chalets give way to rustic Italian farmhouses. And I don’t think I’ll ever get over the thrill of emerging on the other end of the English Channel aboard the Eurostar. But in Thailand, where I’m about to embark on my greatest rail journey yet — a 17-and-a half-hour trip from Bangkok to Hat Yai, a city near the Malaysian border — I only hope my love for train travel will last the trip.

The journey begins at Krung Thep Aphiwat, a brand-new terminal in central Bangkok that’s part of a US$21-billion plan to invest in the kingdom’s rail infrastructure and reduce pollution. Just before 3 p.m., my husband and I board the Special Express 31 train and settle into our seats in an air-conditioned, open-compartment, second-class coach. Outside, the skyscrapers of Bangkok fade away, replaced by bustling markets and sleepy villages. The sun casts a golden glow on the watery rice paddies and steep hills in the distance. We see small cows and huge lizards. A troupe of monkeys dangles from telephone wires.

When we pull into stations, hawkers rush aboard to sell street food from the train’s corridors. At Ratchaburi, an older woman with spectacularly high hair buys several stacks of Styrofoam boxes from a vendor and hands them out to fellow passengers, including us. Our Duolingo Thai is terrible, and she doesn’t speak English, but she gestures emphatically for us to tuck in. The thin rice noodles are simultaneously sweet, spicy and citrusy. All we have to offer in return are Oreos and potato chips, which feels like an inadequate response to her generosity. (She politely declines.)

When night falls, the train staff briskly unfold our seats, transforming them into narrow sleeping berths. Nestled in my bunk, the curtains pulled around me, I feel safely cocooned as the train trundles ahead. The lights stay on overnight, but a sleeping mask does the trick. The only thing I’m missing is earplugs to drown out the not-so-gentle snoring of our noodle lady nearby.

Although we’re traveling at a speed of 50 miles per hour, my train window gives me a glimpse of Thailand I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, certainly not from the air. At ground level, I watch brightly colored temples come and go while snacking on street food that would never find its way to a tray table at 35,000 feet. Around 6 a.m., I wriggle into my husband’s bunk and we spend the next hour watching southern Thailand wake up, bathed in morning light. To think, I could have bought a plane ticket and missed all this. Some rules just aren’t meant to be broken.

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Photo by Matthew Yong/ Unsplash