Waking up to a beautiful view of the Chao Phraya river. Sadly, we had to checked out early to get to the train station. We were going to take a train ride to Hua Hin, a charming seaside town about 4 hours away. I love train rides. It's something very romantic about it. Not romantic in a sense of lovers and stuff, but romantic in the idea of it. To see the world goes by as you stare out from the window..... One of my favourite train ride, was from Verona to Rome, where the train went by a field of sunflowers. I could almost felt like I was in a Van Gogh painting. So beautiful :)
We took a short grab ride to the station, and entered via the side entrance, where the drop off area was. From the view above, the station looked pretty small and run down. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting really. I've never been to the Bangkok train station before.
Here's an official historical sign about the station.
Inside, the station was super wide and beautiful. It reminded me of those european style station. Again, very classic and romantic feel of the whole place. Although it was kinda old and run down at certain area, (mainly the second floor area) it still looked stunning.
I especially love the high ceilings and the coloured windows that let in an array of lights. It was early morning, and it was still quite cool. That's my friend in the photo above. She was kind enough to come early to get us the tickets. We were gonna take the 3rd class tickets without aircon, and those can't be reserved. Yeah, I wanted the real authentic feel of the ride! Lol. Not everyone will agree with me on this one. It's not that I can't afford a better class ride, it's just that, I enjoyed this side of travelling the most. There is nothing adventurous about taking taxi and eating in restaurant when travelling for me. I can always do that back at home. But to take a 4 hour train ride 3rd class? Yup! Only good friends will entertain me on this :)
View of monks are quite common in Thailand. I spotted a few from the 2nd floor looking down. Their beautiful orange robes made them stand out from the crowd. I love photographing monks and nuns in their robes. It kinda made the photos just so timeless! You could also see the portrait of the king and queen hang largely at the main hall of the train station. That is also unique in Thailand. You will see Malaysian also hang the portrait of their current King and Queen, but at most only an A4 size photo.
A lone monk queueing up at the ticket booth.
There are some suggested one day trip by train information that one can find at the ticketing counter. I found one on HuaHin, the town we were going. But to spend 8 hours on a train for a one day trip was a bit too much for me. Luckily we were spending a night at Hua Hin before coming back. Ideally I would have love to spend more time there. There are mangroves to explore and caves to climb into! Perhaps next time? I didn't even made it to one of temple by the beach cause I was just too tired to walk there alone the next morning.
Tickets ready to board the train!
Inside the platform area, it was surprisingly beautiful! I didn't expect it to look like a museum! There were so many trains parked there, and we were free to just walk around to look at all the trains there. No one checks your tickets till you get on the train. It was super fun to look at all the trains.
The yet to be started Royal Blossom train was also parked there. We were super excited to peek into the interior of the train. It was totally beautiful! I hope we get a chance to travel on it in the near future. It almost felt like I was in Japan! Maybe I don't need to go all the way anymore!
We also saw this fancy SRT Prestige train parked at the station. It looked super high class, with dining cabin and beautiful lighting and wooden interior. It felt like a themed train.
The curious part of me can't take it any more, and I actually went up to take a look at the beautiful train. I managed to snap this photo before getting down without anyone scolding me, lol. The thing about being older is, you care a lot less about people scolding you. After all, there is always the innocent "Sorry" to call back on :) Apparently the train was booked by a company for their company trip. We saw a whole group of them getting on. But actually, we found out later that we were on the same train! Yeah, just that, ours was the low class aircon-less cabin all the way at the back of the train! Lol.
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