I messed up. I made what was about to be the most comfortable 12-hour travel trip into an entire body ache. On the train ride south to Koh Pha-ngan Saleem and I booked second-class tickets. We each had an entire bed to ourselves. It was amazing. Train travel is by far my most favorite way to get from point A to point B. We couldn’t stop gushing about it the whole ride and the rest of the weekend. I was really psyched to cozy into my bed and write blog posts and watch Seinfeld, I think I was even daydreaming about doing just that when Saleem realized our return tickets were wrong. They said our city of origin was Bangkok and our destination was Surat Thani. It was supposed to be the opposite. Apparently someone that can maintain nearly a 4.0 throughout college can make an idiotic mistake while buying train tickets. I was so pissed at myself. I remember double-checking when I bought them, that’s what really gets me. How did I check and then recheck and somehow still buy the wrong ticket. We hurried up to the ticket counter to ask for a refund and change tickets, but unfortunately they couldn’t honor a refund and there was only one second-class ticket available. I should have just bought it for Saleem since I wasted his money on the first ticket, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. We weighed our options and ended up buying two third-class tickets on the next train to Bangkok. We had school in the morning so it was imperative that we get going within the hour in order to make it back by 7:45 a.m. So we waited around for another forty minutes and then were directed into the third-class car. The seats were tiny and they were almost all full. After about four hours on the train some people shifted around and we were able to each take up two seats, which still wasn’t that comfortable. The size of two seats in third-class is the size of one seat in second and that’s before they pull out the bed for you. In the photo above Saleem is actually sitting in both our seats. While I’m writing this I’m across the isle in two random seats. I really hope they don’t belong to people that have yet to board. I can’t picture sitting up straight for eight more hours. Some riders are sprawled across three seats and they actually look comfortable, but there aren’t any other open seats to snag at the moment. At least I only have to mentally kick myself for eight more hours. I still can’t believe I made such a stupid mistake.
An hour has passed and I’ve been kicked out of my seat. I had to wake up Saleem and we’re back to sitting straight up. You can bet that’s the last time he has me order the tickets.
