After spending quite some time in Laos, it was finally time for us to continue our journey to Thailand. I was honestly excited because Thailand was a country I had never visited before, and I had no idea what to expect.
Our journey to Thailand was definitely not the most comfortable one.
We traveled by train, and honestly, the train was far from what I imagined. It was very hot, quite narrow, and the seats were really upright. There was not much space to move around, especially because we were carrying our backpacks with us. The journey also took more than half a day, so after a few hours, everyone was already starting to feel tired.
But somehow, even though the train was uncomfortable, there were still funny moments that I will probably remember for a long time.
One of them happened because of the teacher sitting next to me.
My teacher apparently could not sleep properly without leaning on something. So whenever he fell asleep, he would slowly lean toward me. At first, I just let him sleep because I thought, โIt's okay, he's tired too.โ
But after a while, his head and body kept leaning toward me.
I was trying to sleep at the same time, but it was almost impossible to get comfortable. Every time I started falling asleep, I could feel him leaning on me again. So instead of getting a good rest during the long journey, I ended up spending part of the trip trying to find a comfortable position while carrying the weight of a sleeping teacher next to me.
It was honestly a little annoying, but looking back, it was also pretty funny. It was one of those random moments that you probably would not expect to happen during a trip.
After traveling for more than half a day, we finally arrived in Thailand.
And my first reaction was basically:
โWow.โ
The first thing I noticed was how clean the country looked. The buildings and streets also looked very organized, and the overall structure of the city felt neat. Compared to some of the places we had visited before, Thailand immediately gave me a different feeling.
Another thing that made me feel comfortable was the people.
From my first impression, Thai people seemed very friendly and welcoming. I also noticed that many people could understand or speak some Malay, which made communication easier for us compared to some of the countries we had visited before.
And then there was the food.
As a Muslim, one of the things I immediately noticed was that finding halal food in Thailand was not as difficult as I expected. There were many halal food options around us, and that honestly made the trip much easier.
The more I looked around, the more I felt that Thailand was a really interesting country. It was modern and organized, but at the same time, there were still many things that felt familiar to me as someone from Indonesia.
At that moment, I did not know yet how much I was going to explore Bangkok.
I also did not know that in the next few days, Thailand would give me some of the most interesting experiences of this tripโfrom using boats as public transportation, exploring night markets, playing basketball almost every afternoon, visiting huge shopping malls, riding a tuk-tuk with five other friends, and even visiting one of Thailand's top universities.
But before all of that happened, this was how my Thailand journey started:
with a long, hot, uncomfortable train ride... and a sleeping teacher leaning on me. ๐ญ