… Twitterings from Mid-North and the Real North.

My first encounter with trains was on Day 2. So, that wasn’t the real north.

Day 2 was not a happy day at times. I started in Ratchaburi, southwest of Bangkok and ended at the Bestiny Hotel in Petchaburi. That’s quite a long way north of Bangkok. And of course to get there I had to go far too close to, you guessed it, Bangkok. Anywhere near rivers, and Bangkok has plenty of rivers, roads were flooded. At one point I was driving on a narrow road, in 50cms of water, with sandbags on both sides. There were diversions. Ms. Chuckles simply couldn’t cope. For one hour I covered forty kilometers. Not much fun when you’re trying to do 500.

Oh, did I mention the Bestiny Hotel? I didn’t mean to. The best thing about the Bestiny is that I only stayed one night. They had WiFi, but it would only Wi or Fi, never both at the same time. Useless. And like almost every hotel I stayed in they advertised that they had a restaurant. They advertised that the restaurant would be open for dinner. It wasn’t. That’s guaranteed to make me grumpy.

But somewhere in the middle of the day I had a nice visit to something billed as the “floating railway.” Of course, it isn’t floating. It’s a long low bridge at Khok Salung in Lopburi province that arcs out over a lake…

Near where I’d parked there was a mobile coffee truck, the owner of which helpfully informed tourists when the next train was due. It wasn’t long to wait so I stuck around. But a few minutes before the train arrived everyone else left. I’m still trying to figure that one.

Anyhoo, here are some aerial shots…

And then on Day something-or-other, eleven I think, I headed out from my Chiang Mai base to the Khun Tan train station and tunnel. That’s in Lamphun province. Shortly before I reached there I made a small diversion to visit the Tha Chomphu White Bridge, which is famous for its, well, you know…

Crossing the bridge is the main line from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Thailand is not famous for its rail network. It’s old and only one meter gauge, and almost all is single track. But (sound the trumpets) just last week the government announced a huge investment in standard gauge double tracks which will cover the whole country by … 2080! I’ll miss that.

But, the bridge is definitely picturesque.

So, from there it was on to Khun Tan. I was sure Ms. Chuckles was taking me on one of her mystery tours. First we had to enter a National Park. A guard had to trundle out of his little hut to open a barrier. Then the road became narrower and narrower and steeper and steeper with “blow your horn” signs at every hairpin bend. A train station up here? Didn’t seem possible. But suddenly the road ended.

At … the train station.

First I had a wander along the platform…

And then I stuck my nose into the signal box and played with all these levers…

Not sure what they do. 🙂 Security was non-existent.

That was followed by a walk along the grass to the tunnel entrance…

And what’s so special about all of this you are wondering. For starters, it’s both the longest and the highest train tunnel in Thailand. It goes under the Khun Tan mountain range and links Lamhpun and Lampang provinces.

And, it’s really really old. Construction began in 1907 and wasn’t completed until 1918. The work was supervised by a German engineer named Emil Eisenhofer. There’s a memorial to him and his wife next to the tunnel.

It’s hard to imagine hacking a tunnel through raw mountainous jungle with tigers and snakes for daily company. Some reports say 1000 workers died. Some reports say no one died. Some reports say the workers were Chinese. Others contradict and say they were Lao – which in those days would have meant northern Thai. I guess we’ll never know the truth.

What we do know is that the tunnel was officially opened January 1st., 1922 linking for the first time, Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

I wanted to get aerial shots of a train with the tunnel, but one not-so-helpful station chappie said the next one was not due for two hours. Something must have been lost in translation as just because I was preparing to leave, this appeared…

But Maxie had to be very patient, hovering, for about twenty minutes before the thing decided to move…

Well, if you like trains, bridges & tunnels, the visits were a nice diversion from Thai temples.