Gone are the days of rattling along in a fan-cooled carriage with sagging curtains and a chatty uncle who won’t stop telling his life story until 3am. Thailand’s classic Bangkok–Chiang Mai sleeper train is getting some high-class competition in the form of a navy-gold beauty called The Blue Jasmine. It’s essentially a boutique hotel that just happens to roll through some of the country’s most beautiful landscapes.
Poised to make its inaugural nine-day journey from November 16-24, the locomotive trades cramped bunks, dim corridors and platform snacks for private cabins, full dining cars and lounges with wraparound windows.
This nine-day, slow-travel odyssey links three UNESCO World Heritage cities: Ayutthaya, Uthai Thani and Sukhothai with plenty of detours such as riverside almsgiving, mountain-top picnics, pottery-making and silk weaving sessions.
On board, you can sip craft cocktails as the countryside drifts past. Off the train, you’ll bed down in boutique heritage hotels and wander through markets at a pace that lets you actually remember their names.
Besides the plush seats and postcard stops, this project is a ‘New Thailand’ tourism strategy – a move towards high-value, low-impact travel. It’s about drawing in visitors who don’t just tick off temples, but stay longer, spend more locally and leave a lighter footprint. In an age where overtourism is a growing concern, the train spreads visitors across smaller cities and rural areas, putting money into communities that usually watch the tourism boom from the sidelines.
The train leaves the station this November, with more departures lined up for January, February, March, July, November and December 2026. The route starts in Bangkok, winds through Ayutthaya, Uthai Thani, Sukhothai, and Chiang Mai, then loops back to the capital.