{"id":1575,"date":"2010-01-14T05:29:59","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T05:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelwithpaulie.com\/blog\/?p=18"},"modified":"2011-02-03T18:24:29","modified_gmt":"2011-02-03T18:24:29","slug":"bangkok-to-nong-khai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok to Nong Khai"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I start to write this, I’ve been in Nong Khai for about an hour and already I feel the journey has been worth while.\u00a0 It all started over 13 hours ago…<\/p>\n

To get to Nong Khai there are a variety of paths you can take – all the most obvious forms of public transport except boat.\u00a0 I chose the over-night sleeper train that brought me right into Nong Khai town.\u00a0 Alternatively you can take the bus, and you can even fly, though flying is not direct to Nong Khai, but to Udon Thani afterwhich you’ll need to take a 60km bus journey.<\/p>\n

I used the site here<\/a> to fill me in on all I needed with regards trains and took myself to Hualamphong station the day before to get the ticket.\u00a0 Totally painless.\u00a0 I went all out and booked myself the 1st class sleeper compartment at 1317 baht.\u00a0 A little bit more than the 2nd class, but I’d rather have had a safer (since it is a private compartment) and more comfortable night sleep so I’m not a complete sleep-deprived dodo in the morning.\u00a0 Or so I thought…<\/p>\n

So I boarded the train only to realise that each compartment is shared with one other ticket holder – that is, one of you is on the lower bunk, the other on the upper.\u00a0 Clearly this should have been obvious to me since it did have lower<\/em> printed on my ticket, but I’m a little slower than the average bear sometimes.\u00a0 My bedding partner was none other than a monk from Nong Khai and my initial reaction was dread that I was supposed to honour and observe some polite mannerisms that I don’t know about yet and therefore am likely to cause grave offense.\u00a0 Well, those fears were quickly dispelled after we got chatting.\u00a0 His English wasn’t great, but it was far superior to my Thai and we made some decent progress with the aid of a notebook and some terrible drawings.\u00a0 Take a moment if you will and see if you can illustrate the meaning of “Prisoners of our Thoughts<\/a>” on a piece of paper.\u00a0 If I can at some point, I’ll scan the page(s) we used to communicate and show you how it’s done \ud83d\ude00\u00a0 It brings me right back to my early days in Japan where I wouldn’t go anywhere without notepad and pen.<\/p>\n

I came to learn that I was sitting with no-less than the director of a high school here in Nong Khai.\u00a0 I know the name and where it is, and the floor within which he has his office.\u00a0 I also know where to find his temple (Wat<\/em>).\u00a0 He learned from me also about my volunteer job plans, where to find Ireland on the globe, and lots of useful English \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

After about an hour into the journey, very suddenly he stood up and indicated that we should convert the seat into the bunk beds, and I wasn’t going to argue with him.\u00a0 When a man in orange robes indicates to do something, you do it.\u00a0 So up I jumped and the steward popped in and made up our beds for us.\u00a0 Lights out and I’ll see you in Nong Khai then.\u00a0 Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

It was lights out alright, but sleep was to remain elusive.\u00a0 Anyone experienced with bullet trains in Japan, or the equivalent elsewhere in the world, might expect something close to this – it’s nothing like it.\u00a0 By nothing I mean… zilch, nada, zip, poo-poo, bleugh (I’m making words up now, but you get the idea I hope). Don’t get me wrong, (Clickity-clack!) <\/em>while most of the railway track in this journey was (Clickity-clack!)<\/em> in a terrible state, there were some better parts that were just ‘bad’.\u00a0 And (Clickity-clack!) <\/em>when you’re used to terrible, ‘bad’ is ‘good’.\u00a0 You lie awake (Clickity-clack!) <\/em>waiting for the ‘bad’ so that you might get yourself to a stage of (Clickity-clack!) <\/em>slumber where it doesn’t matter (Clickity-clack!) <\/em>how bad it gets because you’re asleep already.\u00a0 Clickity-clack! <\/em>Clickity-clack!<\/em><\/p>\n

Somehow I managed to steal an hour here or there, but mostly it was tossing and turning.\u00a0 About half way into the trip, it did get significantly smoother… I think they had refined the distance between track sections making it much quieter, but it was by no means consistent.\u00a0 At around 5am I had the fantastic idea to put on my noise canceling head phones and was amazed at the difference.\u00a0 Highly recommended!<\/p>\n

Next thing I knew then was I was waking up to being whacked <\/em>on the leg by the monk – he had decided at 7am it was time to get up and have the beds converted to the seats again.\u00a0 Not being a morning person, not having any decent sleep to speak of, and being violently woken up combined to leave me in quite foul humour for about half an hour while I adjusted.\u00a0 Then we were chatting again, I had breakfast, and feel asleep again for the remainder of the journey until about 10am (90mins late).<\/p>\n

When the train pulled up to the station, he shook my hand and scuttled out the door and I figured that regrettably it would be the last I’d see of him.\u00a0 But then the true gem of the whole journey emerged while I was haggling with tuk-tuk drivers charging me 3x the going rate.\u00a0 A man appeared from nowhere and took me by the arm and pointed to his car… and yep, inside was my monk-friend waving me on telling me that he’ll take me to the volunteer centre.\u00a0 Quality.\u00a0 So I took a ride with 3 monks, a cute little novice, and the driver, and they together worked out from the map where the place is and dropped me off.\u00a0 Seriously awesome and makes the whole sleep-deprived ordeal worth every minute.<\/p>\n

So right now, I’m killing a bit of time until lunch at the Open Mind Project HQ, after being shown my room.\u00a0 So far so good… the whole “play it by ear” thing is working it seems.\u00a0 Trust the system. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I start to write this, I’ve been in Nong Khai for about an hour and already I feel the journey has been worth while.\u00a0 It all started over 13 hours ago… To get to Nong Khai there are a variety of paths you can take – all the most obvious forms of public transport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[430],"tags":[309,546,380,548,399,405],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cat-travel-diary","tag-bangkok","tag-nong-khai","tag-public-transport","tag-thailand","tag-thailand-railway","tag-trains"],"yoast_head":"\nBangkok to Nong Khai - Plog - Paulie's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bangkok to Nong Khai - Plog - Paulie's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I start to write this, I’ve been in Nong Khai for about an hour and already I feel the journey has been worth while.\u00a0 It all started over 13 hours ago… To get to Nong Khai there are a variety of paths you can take – all the most obvious forms of public transport […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Plog - Paulie's Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/paulgoodchild\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-14T05:29:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-02-03T18:24:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Travel Paulie\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@paulgoodchild\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@paulgoodchild\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Travel Paulie\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Travel Paulie\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/537616de812405e9c4d2411c99c74f63\"},\"headline\":\"Bangkok to Nong Khai\",\"datePublished\":\"2010-01-14T05:29:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-02-03T18:24:29+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1036,\"commentCount\":5,\"keywords\":[\"Bangkok\",\"Nong Khai\",\"public transport\",\"Thailand\",\"Thailand Railway\",\"trains\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Travel Diary\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/\",\"name\":\"Bangkok to Nong Khai - Plog - Paulie's Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-01-14T05:29:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-02-03T18:24:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/537616de812405e9c4d2411c99c74f63\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Bangkok to Nong Khai\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Plog - Paulie's Blog\",\"description\":\"A personal blog exploring life, learning, business, and travel\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/537616de812405e9c4d2411c99c74f63\",\"name\":\"Travel Paulie\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Travel Paulie\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/paulgoodchild.me\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/travel-paulie\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bangkok to Nong Khai - Plog - Paulie's Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bangkok to Nong Khai - Plog - Paulie's Blog","og_description":"As I start to write this, I’ve been in Nong Khai for about an hour and already I feel the journey has been worth while.\u00a0 It all started over 13 hours ago… To get to Nong Khai there are a variety of paths you can take – all the most obvious forms of public transport […]","og_url":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/","og_site_name":"Plog - Paulie's Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/paulgoodchild","article_published_time":"2010-01-14T05:29:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-02-03T18:24:29+00:00","author":"Travel Paulie","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@paulgoodchild","twitter_site":"@paulgoodchild","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Travel Paulie","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/"},"author":{"name":"Travel Paulie","@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/537616de812405e9c4d2411c99c74f63"},"headline":"Bangkok to Nong Khai","datePublished":"2010-01-14T05:29:59+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-03T18:24:29+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/"},"wordCount":1036,"commentCount":5,"keywords":["Bangkok","Nong Khai","public transport","Thailand","Thailand Railway","trains"],"articleSection":["Travel Diary"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/","url":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/","name":"Bangkok to Nong Khai - Plog - Paulie's Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-01-14T05:29:59+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-03T18:24:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/537616de812405e9c4d2411c99c74f63"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/bangkok-to-nong-khai\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bangkok to Nong Khai"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/","name":"Plog - Paulie's Blog","description":"A personal blog exploring life, learning, business, and travel","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/537616de812405e9c4d2411c99c74f63","name":"Travel Paulie","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","caption":"Travel Paulie"},"url":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/author\/travel-paulie\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgoodchild.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}