When we first departed from our friend Jon’s house in Hua Hin Thailand heading to Sungai Kolok and the Malay boarder we travelled first class – which is not the first class you would get in the UK but it does at least mean that you have your own private space with a lockable door. This time travelling in the opposite direction (except for the fact that we are travelling from Butterworth) going northwards we had been booked in to a 2nd class birth as there was to be no 1st class on this train.

23rd October. We arrived at Butterworth train station with out too much hardship, we got a taxi and the surf board travelled separately in a van belonging to a friend of the guest house. We got onto a ferry from George Town at about 1.00pm and got to the station by about 1.45pm – leaving plenty of time to board the train.

There is no real distinction between 1st and 2nd class, 1st is neither newer, cleaner or more grand! Just that it offers privacy…. which is a highly prized commodity if you have a child and you expect to be on the train for 16 hours. We set off from Malaysia on time and we managed to amuse ourselves with chocolate eclairs and story books. The boarder crossing into Thailand went smoothly – you step off the train at one end of the platform and go through Malay immigration, walk through a corridor and then go through Thai immigration and then pop out of the same door you came in and back onto the train. When we got onto the train there was an officious train guard demanding extra money for Gavin’s surf board even though in Malaysia there was no issue. We had been told specifically there was no need to pay extra for the board! Now it was a different story and he was demanding 12RM or 120 Baht for carrying our board on the train. Gavin insisted that he gave us a receipt – for two reasons. Firstly because we knew he wanted to pocket the money and secondly because we have learnt that if there is one official that wants to charge you…. there will be others!! We sure as anything were not going to pay again!! When he came back with the receipt it showed we were being charged for two pieces of luggage because they weighed over 40kg – when in fact we had one piece that weighs about 15kg (we know this because it was weighed for the flight from Bali). There was no way to argue with a Thai official that does not speak English – so we did not even bother to try!!

The journey was technically uneventful except for the facts that Gavin and I did not sleep (as usual) and Tehya travelled like a dream (as usual). We arrived 30 minutes early in Hua Hin…. which was a bit of a nightmare as we had set our alarm 30 minutes before we were due…. so we got out of bed as we pulled into the station. Gavin slept in his clothes so jumped up and got the big luggage of the train – while I picked Tehya up who was still asleep and dropped her into her trousers at high speed. She woke up so full of beans… a big smile…. hair sticking up and sweet sleepy eyes!! We made our way to the entrance of the station and sat waiting for Jon to arrive and collect us!!! After waiting over an hour we gave up and not knowing where he was we booked a taxi to a cheap hotel close by.