“The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown.”
– Paul Theroux
“…what thrills me about trains is not their size or their equipment but the fact that they are moving, that they embody a connection between unseen places.”
― Marianne Wiggins
There’s something about train rides that’s drawing me near. And I can’t explain it.
My first train ride experience was when I was first introduced to international travelling. Back then, we had to play charades just to communicate with strangers. What’s even amusing is that we share the same facial features, skin color and all, yet we can’t seem to understand each other when we were asking help to get to the train station in Hua Lamphong from the Suvarnabhumi Airport. This was eight years ago.
Fast forward to this day, I may have ridden countless train trips (especially when border crossing between Cambodia and Thailand became my hobby when I decided to live in Siem Reap for 5 months to experience what being a nomad feels like) but nothing beats the feeling of enjoying these long rides.
People might be in this journey to meet strangers. Some are probably scrimping while some refuses to be eaten by industrialization. As for me, I wouldn’t dare speak to anyone as much as possible on these journeys. Unless of course I’m in the company of friends and acquaintances. I’d prefer my moments of solitude enjoying the beautiful melody of noise the train’s chugging is doing.
Someday, I’d want to collect train rides.
Yeah. That would be a good idea. Stamps and train rides would make a good hobby.
P.S. If you’ve reached this far, thank you for putting up with this nonsense of a blog post. Just filling in the gaps here since a web aggregator is stealing my latest post’s rankings. Peace out!
