Well it turns out I couldn’t. I saw rats, I saw cockroaches, every few minutes a disgruntled Thai would spit on the floor, making it extremely difficult to relax let alone sleep. Lonely Planet told me that the station opens at 4am (why didn’t I read this before leaving Vietnam?), and so I delighted in the fact that I could at least get off the floor, book my ticket and find a nice chair to take refuge in for the last few remaining hours.
When the doors did open at 4am (which felt like a small miracle after two hours sitting amongst the vermin) I moved my load inside to a wooden bench.
When the ticket office opened, however, I was given the soul crushing news that the 8am train to Surat Thanai was full. Naturally.
At this point all I wanted to do was find a hotel to wait in until the next train, at 1pm. Nine uncomfortable hours away.
I now see all my mistakes as if they were presented to me on a black slab, like the Ten Commandments were presented to Charlton Heston.
Mistake number one: Not booking the train online. Mistake number two was thinking the station would be open all night. And thirdly, knowing all this, not booking a hotel to stay in until it was time to get the train, where I would have been able to shower, change and rest.
I moved to some chairs, used my bag as a pillow and tried to sleep, but it was like trying to sleep with plastic bricks in your back, bruising my ribs every time I moved. At half five, I booked my ticket for the 1pm train. Exhausted I decided to search nearby hotels, thinking I could get a full morning’s sleep before boarding the train.
Wishful thinking was followed by disappointment after trying three hotels close to the station. Granted it was 6am but I was still saddened to find they were all dead ends. One was too expensive (considering it was only for 7 hours) and the other two rooms looked more like prison cells, where the beds looked harder than the plastic chairs back at the station.
After visiting a trusty 7Eleven, I returned to the station with a bag of goodies for the train and eavesdropped on three girls from Newcastle who were travelling north to Chaing Mai. Having only been in Chaing Mai a month before, I felt compelled to butt in. And how pleased I was that I did. The next two hours went rather quickly as we shared tales and advice, until they left for their pre booked train. Smug cows.