A Birthday and a Day of Travel

Sunday, July 11, 2010—Phi Mai to Nakhon Ratchasima

Happy Birthday to me! I’m 65 today. That’s unbelievable.

I caught an early bus to Nakhon Ratchasima. That was a mistake, because I had to wait to check in at my hotel when I arrived there. Apparently the city gets lots of weekend tourism, and the hotel had been full. I read. I spent some time on the computer via their wi-fi setup. I walked to the train station and bought my ticket for tomorrow and returned. Finally, at 12:20, they had my old room clean and ready for me.

My train ticket seems expensive for tomorrow—the same price for a 1 1/2 hour trip that I paid for the 5-hour trip to come here. And I’m still in air conditioned second class as I was before.

It was so nice to be in the room that I stayed there watching TV, doing more on the computer, etc. Finally, I went to dinner at 18:30 to a place around the corner that my hotel recommended. Since I had arrived in Nakhon Ratchasima, I had been trying to find a place to eat Pad Mee Korat, a local dish that is somewhat of a spicy version of Pad Thai. Well, this restaurant made it for me. What a nice surprise to finally get to try it for my birthday. It had a sweet-heavy soy sauce as a part of it, and it was nice and spicy. I wondered what the meat was, but not too much! Sometimes it is best to eat and not think.

There are bakeries all over Thailand, but I couldn’t remember one anywhere near my hotel. So rather than having cake as a dessert for my birthday, I had a small package of Oreos as I watched an Australian film on TV.

Monday, July 12, 2010—Nakhon Ratchasima to Buri Ram

My train was delayed as expected. At first I was told it would be 15 minutes late. Then I was told half an hour. Eventually, a tuk-tuk driver came to me and said it was delayed for 3 hours and that I should exchange my ticket for an earlier train. I went into the station, and the ticket man agreed. The new ticket was for a train leaving in less than an hour, and I got a refund of 250 Baht (almost $8).

A woman and a security man were keeping an eye on me to make sure I was on the right platform and was not getting on the wrong train. When my train was 15 minutes late, another train pulled into the station. It was the original train I should have taken. The security man rushed me into the station to change tickets again. There went my 250 Baht again, but the ticket agent said that my new train would not be here for another 4 hours! I don’t know what had happened, but this one train I took was the only one that had come through going eastward in the 4 hours I had been at the station. At least 5 trains had gone through going the opposite direction.

They gave me a meal on the train, so I guess that was the reason for the extra $8. It wasn’t worth that much, but it was nice to have something to eat.

We eventually pulled into Buri Ram 3 hours later than the train should have arrived. I walked directly behind the station to the place I had written for a reservation--the U Jarern Serviced Apartments. The looked essentially like the photos on the Internet (except it is a bit worn from the time when the photo was taken). But there were two problems. First, it had only a small window with opaque glass opening to a shaft. I like light to come into my room. And second, it was at the end of the hallway, and the wi-fi signal was so weak that I couldn’t connect to it inside the room. Instead, I had to go to the lobby where the signal was strong. That convinced me that I would not stay here more than this one night.

Therefore, out I went into the heat of the day at 15:00 looking for other places I had taken notes on. They were all on the south side of town, so I had to walk to there first. Then I had to search for the address numbers, since they all were along one major street. One I never found. One was a pleasant surprise because it was located on a university campus. However, it did not offer free Internet. A major hotel, the Vongthong, was fine and included both Internet and a breakfast buffet. But just down the street from it was a small, family owned place called the Lek Apartments for $8 less that was very clean and nice. I told them I would return tomorrow and stay two nights there. All the possibilities can be found at this website: http://www.buriramexpats.com/hotels/buriram-city/

It was 18:30 by the time I got back to the hotel. I was still full from the late lunch on the train (served at 14:00), so I decided not to eat out. Instead, I will have one of the granola bars that I brought on the trip for occasions like this.