Tall Thai Tales

Part Two

World Class

This was not my first attempt to travel first-class on a train, nor my first failure. In fact I've never actually managed it, and so when I was informed that all tickets other than second class bunks were sold-out I was not surprised, just a little disappointed.

My section of second-class was populated by a group of Tanzanian and Kenyan students on a drunken binge out of KL. They carried about them a festive air of jolly bewilderment, as if they couldn't work out what they were doing on this train but were determined to enjoy themselves anyway. Despite having been drunk for over twenty-fours, as they informed me, they were also very respectful and polite. They were insistent with their whisky and I'm a pushover, so they joined me and gave accounts of their surprise at the ease with which they were able to sleep with Malaysian women.

One of them, whose grin grew in inverse proportion to his conversation as the evening went on, punctuated every pause in conversation with, “You should go to East Africa, man,” and nodded sagely, while I would express my heartfelt wishes to go there. Much later, he gave me a softly incredulous stare and asked, in a gently reproachful and peacefully plaintive tone, “Why won't you go to East Africa, man?” Giving up on insisting that I did want to go, I told him that it was because I hadn't been invited. He sat back contentedly in his seat, as if I had solved some imponderable universal mystery for him,and spent the rest of the evening, whenever I happened to catch his eye, nodding and winking at me as though we shared a blood-binding secret together.

By the time our bunks were pulled down, and beds made up by the stewards, I was about ready to sleep. The Africans were still chattering and laughing away amongst themselves until a Thai lady leaned out from behind her curtain and said, very nicely, “It's quite late now, you know.” Immediately abashed and appalled at their own behaviour, they gathered up their bottles, glasses and cigarettes before quietly tip-toeing down the aisle so that they could talk and drink in the open space between carriages.

I think I will go to East Africa y'know.