2014.

You can take the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai if you really want to. The Special Express Diesel Train rolls north from the rusty barrel vault of Hualamphong Station and passes through a sea of shacks with corrugated metal roofs. Bangkok's endless sprawl. You could spend a lifetime or two lost in the details of it. Signs written in Thai script that looks like vines drooping under the weight of flower blossoms. Little Buddhist shrines in parking lots. Street cooks frying fat noodles under blue tarps. People sitting at tables on the sidewalk in a million different combinations and configurations. A sprawling city where people live their inside lives outside, in full view.

The train passes through Bangkok's outer suburbs and housing developments that have names like Monte Carlo or The Grand Canal (the entrance to which is marked with those candy cane striped poles you see along the canals in Venice). Finally, Bangkok ends and the rice paddies begin. Kilometer after kilometer of flat, hazy fields. Sometimes there's a figure alone in the distance wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. Then it could be any century of the last six or so. The rice fields are interrupted now and then by a big bronze statue of Buddha, or by a stray dog.

At each little railroad station there's an open-sided shelter with a pitched roof and a railroad employee dressed in a military-style uniform. When the train is ready to depart, the guy doesn't yell "All aboard!" but rings a big brass bell that hangs on the wall.

There aren't many passengers on the Special Express Diesel Train. Maybe it's because the long distance buses in Thailand are faster and cleaner. If you're willing to pay extra, you can even catch a VIP bus with reclining seats and karaoke videos on demand. There are no karaoke videos on the train. The seats are broken and it'd be nice if they could do something about the ants. The attendant is a lady wearing a bright pink blazer and a don't-mess-with-me expression on her face. Lunch is instant noodles and a cup of tea served in a chipped porcelain cup.