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Published: August 6th 2007
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I love train travel. Though not the enthusiast who clings to his childhood by converting his basement into a functional railway system in miniature, train travel always trumps going by motor vehicle. Departing at 12:55 on platform seven, the Ordinary from Bangkok to Ayutthaya is no exception. An archeological find in most other countries, forty-year old electric oscillating fans bolted to the ceiling move the damp air around the wagon. The paint on the bars of the overhead luggage rack is dry and chipped. The platform which supports passengers’ belongings is of torn chain links. As I am the first to board, I grab a spot by the air conditioning system: a screenless timber framed window so wide, a Holstein could squeeze through on the first try. Only the watchful eye of parents hinders children from leaning out and never coming back. My seat is but a Spartan cream-colored angular bench, without a hint of comfort. Custodial staff sweep and mop the aged and indented hardwood floors while passengers laden with canvas sacks of goods maneuver around them. The train may be antiquated, but it is scrubbed down and ready to go.
The sounds of train travel enchant and call
Ceiling Fan
In Perfect Working Condition to mind a classic era when it was a big event to step aboard a steam engine. Though diesel has taken over, much of the scene has remained constant. Railway workers in oiled shorts and tank tops violently hammer away at the undercarriage and make clanking noises. Another cranks and tightens suspension rods. Conductors blow whistles to call all aboard, signaling an eminent departure three platforms away. Water rushes through aquamarine hoses into pipes between carriages. A pudgy man fidgets in a bitter struggle for sleep and slams his body on a hard bench too short and narrow for his frame. All the while women have gathered on the platform sheltered from the sun by wobbly corrugated metal above. They pack buckets of cold drinks, sacks of sandwiches, and satchels of nuts for the passengers’ refreshments. Their voices sing out prices and what’s available.
The carriage has yet to lurch forward. I am eager to go to Thailand. They, in turn, are getting set for work.
The images from my window of Bangkok’s outskirts are simply deplorable. The slums are of ramshackle timber structures without electricity or running water. Some are so unstable they have given way and lean up
Struggling For Sleep
Tossing and Turning Without Success against the next. It is their neighbor’s hovel that keeps their whole lives from crashing into stagnant sewer ditches in which young girls do the day’s laundry and dump their daily trash. Clothes are hung out to dry on power lines. By the time we reach the turnoff for Don Mueang Airport, I long for a change of venue and will silently curse the four British vacationers across from me. Just off the plane, they are making a game of flipping morsels of Pringles® potato chips in each others mouths. The drama outside their window does not concern them.
Soon enough, the city dissipates into a scattering of apartment buildings, then flat land perfect for an industrial park. As I spot my first flooded rice paddy, I doze off.
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