Train Tracks, River Boats & Fireflies…

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Scotty

I don’t know if this is cheating but we looked through the tour book in our room and seen some things we really wanted to see. The tours were really cheap considering it was a full day and most of the night (650 BHT/£13 each). We looked online to see if there was other cheaper, more daring ways to get there, and it turns out there wasn’t. So we booked our trip in the morning and left in the afternoon with a dozen or so other tourists, ranging from Chinese, Japanese and Americans. Everyone was fairly young though, so I blended in with them all

It took about an hour and a half to get to the first destination which was something I had seen a long time ago and always wanted to visit, the Maeklong market. For anyone who hasn’t seen this spectacle, its a market along the lines of a railway track. Not unusual you may think but 8 times a day the market vendors have to pull back their awnings to let the train pass.

So for anyone from the UK who is around my age (26), you will remember the police coming in to school to give safety talks about trespassing on the railway lines during the summer months (or maybe that was just Skelmersdale, the only town not to have a railway station). If you can remember, forget everything they said when visiting this market. We had a brief safety talk form the guide who said, “you will hear bell, when you hear bell, run (not walk) behind the safety barriers or the train will crush you, now you can go look at the market”. Fantastic, so we venture off into the market which to be fair is a tourist attraction now during weekends but is still used by locals to source food for their families and businesses. It sold everything from fish to fruit to BELLLLLLLLLLLLLL. Then the pandemonium started and I thought, “yeah the train is at least 10 minutes away” – how foolish I was. So there we both are with about 400 tourists running and screaming (think of a B rated horror movie and you get the idea) to find a barrier to hide behind as the huge locomotive comes rolling down the railway line. So I drag Suu-Min behind a barrier of a local market vendor and get my camera ready. As you can see from the pictures the train gets very very close and I get some amazing shots and survive the day. You couldn’t dream of this happening at King’s Cross in London, but here in Thailand health and safety goes straight out of the window every time when it comes to tourism.

So after that adrenaline rush we head over to our next destination which was the Amphawa market.



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Suu-Min

I’m writing this after being banished to the balcony for “being distracting”. It’s a lovely view here, to my left the bridge over the Shao Phraya River is stunning, all lit up, and to my right there are rows of curved ornate roofs. I’d highly recommend this place to stay, Sivarin Guest House. It’s clean, comfortable and friendly, only a short walk from Khao San Road but very quiet.

Anyway, Amphawa floating markets. This market is not far from Maeklong, in Samut Songkram province. I gather it’s not as much of a foreign tourist hotspot as the Damnoen Saduak floating market, and this one opens in the late afternoon so by the time we got there things were just getting started. We had two hours to explore, so we took a slow pace, matching the pace of the market around us. It’s one of the most peaceful places that I’ve been in a long time. Along the banks of the canal there are guesthouses, the doors of many of which were open and we could see inside. They looked beautiful, all wooden floors and walls with cabinets full of ornaments and loungers to relax on. The guide had said on the way that they were around 200-300 Baht a night (£4-6), definitely something I’d love to do. In the mornings the vendors travel up and down the canal and each house has stairs down to the water, so that you can buy things – anything from food to flowers.

Most of the market is actually based on dry ground, on the banks of the canal and a little further back in to the buildings, with just a few boats near the waters edge. There were mostly food stalls for fresh vegetables, fish and meat, as well as some selling “I ♥ Amphawa” t-shirts and the like.



We wandered away from the edge of the water and came to the riverside, where we were nearly the only people there. Again, stunning views, something about water as well is so peaceful. On the way back to the main part of the market we passed the market entertainment, which was a middle-aged Thai gentleman who alternated between DJ-ing and singing Karaoke. He was awesome, though not really in tune.

Walking the opposite direction from the market there were beautiful gardens which I wished we’d found sooner, as it was nearing the time for us to head back to the starting point. On our way back there was a man and his dog playing in the river. It was really adorable, the man would duck under the water to hide from the dog, who would pretend not to be able to find him, and then the man would burst out from under the water behind him.

When we got back to the starting point it was nearly dark and time for the last part of our journey, the fireflies. We piled into boats and headed away from the market. It’s an awesome trip, about an hour all up. Our boat was really full and we got passed by all the other boats, until the driver revved the engine and we started speeding through the water like a jet boat (I’m probably exaggerating…). Once we reached the area with the fireflies we pulled over towards the banks. I was expecting them to be like glowworms, always lit up, but they seem to flash in unison, more like Christmas lights. A few of them flew close to our boats. Our final leg was through the market itself, which by then had finished but all the houses were lit up for the evening, and there were still a few vendors gently paddling up and down.

After that amazing 1 1/2 hour boat ride we ended up in the same place as we started, which was really confusing for Scotty, who kept asking me how we had managed to do that.

That’s the end of our time in Bangkok this time around – tomorrow, another early start and where our real journey begins – the infamous border crossing to Cambodia.



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