Homes on stilts - flood plain, & somewhere to

Well, our train from Surat Thani was half an hour late in arriving / leaving, but was quite an experience. Dinner was served by a very bouncy attendant, thenabout 930 a burly male attendant came round and converted the seating into bunk beds. Quite comfortable but a bit strange slleping with loads of strangers albeit behind curtains. The half hour delay became one hour by the time we made Bangkok at 07:30. No matter, we had an hour to ablute and get some breakfast before our train to Chiang May. Wrong! It was 2 hour late so at 10:30 we pulled out of BK and were given a review of the rail side slums for the secong time this morning. It is said that the worst way to arrive / depart any city is by rail. BK simply verifies that asbeing horribly true.
The line to CM snakes north out of the city for a few miles then becomes virtually straight for mile after mile. 8 hours after leaving Bangkok, having crossed something like 500 miles of very fertile plain, marginally more interesting than palm oil forrest, mainly rice paddy, with some sugar cane and wheat, the train is now starting to climb it's way up to Chaing Mai.
Twilight just as the scenery was getting interesting. Dense jungle with small huts in tiny clearings, viewed in a weird semi-darkness. Shallow rivers with large boulders appearing out of the steamy jungle in the increasing gloom. All very spooky & primeval
Then the power failed in car 3, ours, and the trail moved slowly into a station. Power restored we moved off only to stop again when the power went once more. Power restored but forward motion missing. 7:30 pm, 3 hours to go to CM and nothing is happening. It's a jungle out there!
OK, Power restored again & arrived CM @ 10:30. In Hostel Chalet by 11:00. Zillions of mozzies. Let battle commence.
G&S