It was his wish to go on a solitary journey where he might be in the vicinity of itinerant others like himself for reasons like his own, while staying aloof from them by a peripheral association of glances. He might sit dreamingly for hours at a time at a sidewalk restaurant or on the ground before a stupa in Vientiane, eat vegetable and cheese baguettes (the American cheese variety of course) and watch Europeans go by on their rented bicycles. From these glances he would be part of them without allowing them to disrupt his Buddhist contemplation; however, knowing which of them were cultured, and which were merely backpacking hedonists might be hard to determine with mere glances, and if he felt that only the latter were there, he would think that he might as well return home for Bangkok was the prime bivouac for such characters. For what he knew, this rustic Paris might well be the dernier cri for such lost souls like his or, conversely, a Mecca for middle-aged men fantasizing about Laotian men's erections. In either case, or nothing of the sort, he was going there by train as if he were not able to pay for a plane ticket as easily as the average man could pay for a ride on a city bus. Of course this particular car was air conditioned, and riding in it, despite its coldness, was certainly more comfortable than the "cattle cars" linked from behind; but coming by train at all was an attempt toward simplifying his life and it was as close to the Jatupon whom he once was that he cared to ever be again.
He knew it without dwelling upon the point for the latter activity would separate him from others even further: despite an impoverished and savage childhood, he was a refined man although hopefully demure enough not to believe it too intensely or allow it to exude into his interactions beyond a surly air softened in a warm smile. He could have taken an airplane. Refined men always did but here he was in this particular car of this particular train hoping to find balance after falling into the stone and dust rubble that intense pleasures had brought upon him. And yet, he told himself, if his own experiences immediately before, during and after his ejaculation in the toilet portended stygian events to come that would have him wallowing in base instinctual drives, so be it. He smiled and thought how his life was an unpredictable series of unconnected episodes. It was as if he were at a sanuk packard (amusement park) and torturous suffering was mixed into the thrill of every ride. Although seeking and favoring "sanook" in all matters like any great hedonist, realistically he hoped to learn something within these vicissitudes.