Upon leaving Koh Tao, I had originally planned to head up into northern Thailand, but on a whim, decided instead to head south into Malaysia for a week. That is one great benefit of not setting your itinerary in stone ahead of time by booking flights, accommodations, etc. So instead of heading towards northern Thailand, I caught a ferry in the afternoon from Koh Tao to Chumpon on the eastern coast of Thailand. There I took a bus to the train station and on the way met 3 guys from Boulder, who had just graduated and were touring southeast asia before heading back home to find jobs. We had arrived at the train station in the afternoon but didn’t have to leave until very late that evening, so we decided to walk around town. They told me about some of the different crazy parties they had been to in the Thailand islands, including the infamous full moon party on Koh Phanghan which attracts upwards of 10,000 people during the full moon each month. Hanging out with them reminded me of the range of reasons that people may choose to travel for an extended period of time.
Arriving back at the train station, I checked the departure board to see that many of the trains were delayed, some for many hours. Luckily my train originally scheduled for 10:45pm was only delayed half an hour. It arrived and I got on, my first time on an overnight train. Looking down the middle aisle of the train, lower and upper beds extended the length of the train on either side. They included curtains that pulled in front of the beds, so I didn’t actually see any of the other passengers as everyone was already asleep. I had heard issues of people walking off with other people’s bags in the middle of the night, and found a metal railing on the train to lock my bag up to. Getting into bed, it was pretty short – and I’m not the tallest. I don’t get claustrophobic, but could see how people could feel that way about the beds, especially after you draw the curtain. I put my smaller backpack at the foot of my bed and, after putting on a sleeping mask and ear plugs, went to sleep.
Lessons Learned
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Not booking transportation and hotels ahead of time will give you more flexibility to change your itinerary on the fly – which you may choose to do when you hear about cities from other travelers. I would imagine this extends to life as well … the more flexibility you have in your life, the more open you will be to redirecting to new experiences
- People traveling do so for a range of reasons, none more valid than another – but it can totally color their perspective on what is “worth seeing” versus “not worth seeing.” Again, specific to travel but translates to life as well
When I went to Europe for 3 weeks with a friend in the 80’s we had a rule to determine where we would go: We would stay wherever we were until we either tired of it or it started to rain. In either case we would go to the train station and go wherever the next train was going. It was easy to do with a Eurail pass.
That’s a great system. Although in Pai, Thailand, I stayed a few days in the rain and decided to give it one more day, which is when it happened to be sunny and beautiful. I rented a motorbike to explore the surrounding area (which I’ll post on in the future) and it ended up being one of my favorite days in all my travel so far. Though I see what you’re getting at … it is fun to be spontaneous and not to be too set into a plan.