We were lucky enough to be able to buy train tickets from Kanchanaburi to Hua Hin. It did involve changing trains and the best thing is that it didn’t involve going to Bangkok. The Kanchanaburi line of the train system (which is what remains of the Death Railway) branches off the main southern line almost 2 hours south of Bangkok, which is where we switched to the Hua Hin bound train. Of course, both trains were late, but we made it fine.
Though we still had third class seats on the second train, the seats were padded, making them more comfortable. And for some reason I can’t understand, despite the fact that the windows were open on both trains, the second one was not nearly as noisy as the first was. Some monks came on and it was interesting to see how the conductor re-arranged where people were sitting so that they were not sitting next to women. Also, much like trains throughout South America, there were an endless steam of vendors selling food and drinks. I had a delicious kebob for breakfast from one of them!
We arrived in Hua Hin at 12:22 and the last Webster bus back to housing (until 6pm) left at 12:30pm from a different location. We booked it to the bus stop, and ended up missing it by 2 minutes! Of course, the one time the bus is on time happened to be this one. Ah well! We had lunch in town before catching one of the public Phetchaburi-bound buses home. I was so tired when we got home that I fell asleep for 4 hours!
I woke up at 6:30pm and then came for dinner and to post this online. Hope I can sleep tonight! The exciting news about my camera is that I can once again post photos online, so check my photo site for a Kanchanaburi album!