Day 20 - Saturday July 11, 2009: Trains Trains and more Trains

Woke up at 6 am and caught a free ride at 6:45.  We were supposed to get a cab, but were greeted by a man in an unmarked car - he didn't charge us or kidnap us, so all is well.  Took 3+ hour train ride to Ch....something..... station.  We used the bathrooms and then proceeded to get followed around while we waited for our train.  We are pretty sure we almost got murdered.  It was straight out of a horror film; no matter how fast we ran (we literally ran at one point) or how many stores we ducked into we could always hear his slow shuffling behind us or catch a glimpse of that baby blue adidas sweatshirt.  

Found our "Tour Guides" who we paid for some Alli San package deal.  They were useless.  They handed us a pack of tickets, walked us to our train (which was 50 feet from where we were standing), handed us a bottle of water and left.  We got on the Old Forest Train Line and spent the next 5 hours traveling 45 miles...you read that right.

We reached Alli San and took the van to our hotel which had the worst rock solid beds I have ever felt.  Then we headed to our pre-paid dinner that was part of our package deal.  There are no words to describe that dinner.  In a nutshell, it was the most uncomfortable, embarrassing, insulting, awkward, expensive, and unsatisfying meal we have ever had.  No one spoke english and they didn't want to put up with us long enough to try and explain by pointing at what we could order.  After our waitress sent over her 12 year old daughter, who also didn't speak English, we ended up getting pork fried rice, fatty pork, and a mixed hot pot which was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.  After we escaped that hell we went to the 7-11 and bought some beer and snacks for an early night in the hotel.