I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the folding market train video. Honestly, I’d seen trains run through the middle of markets in other parts of Asia before, but I didn’t know the Maeklong market was the most famous in the world. When I told my friend Vora I planned to take the train to the market, she said, “count me in”!
Most people go to the Maeklong market on a tour which busses you an hour and a half from Bangkok to the market and then continues on to other sites after you’ve acquired your requisite footage. I thought, why take a bus to watch the train run through the market when you can be on the train that goes through the market! There was a reason; however I didn’t discover it until later.
I’d scoped out the departure station the day before because it’s a commuter line that begins on the other side of the river from the main Bangkok station. It’s the kind of suburban line that doesn’t post a schedule online so you pretty much have to go in person to see the schedule posted on the board near the ticket office window.
I noticed some great food stalls surrounding the station while checking out the schedule and decided to show up a little early the next day to try one before our trip. It turns out Vora had the same idea as we bumped into each other on the light rail.
Having Vora with me is a mixed blessing in Thailand. She speaks Thai, which makes getting around infinitely more easy. Unfortunately, she also eats Thai so I never know what’s gonna show up on our plates after she’s had a long conversation with one of our servers.
We enjoyed a couple bowls of soup and grabbed a bag of chicken and rice to go. Being a commuter line, the train was one of the oldest in the system. There is usually no AC on the local trains, and keeping cool on 90 degree days with 100% humidity is generally dependent on keeping the windows open while the train is in motion. This works fine if you’re on the shady side of the train but fails on the sunny side. There is a perforated metal shade that can be pulled up to block the sun, but it also tends to filter out any air that would otherwise come in, not to mention the view.
When the train is stopped at a station, ventilation is accomplished using oscillating fans mounted to the ceiling of the car. As you can imagine, blowing 90 degree air around is not very effective at cooling, and you begin to feel like you’re in a convection oven if the train is stationary for too long. Fortunately, we’d picked a seat on the shady side of the train, but it ended up being next to the bathroom because we’d failed to board the train when it pulled into the station on account of our eating.
The train moved much more quickly through the suburbs than we’d anticipated. Looking out the window was like watching a motion picture with rail crossings and streams flashing past. Often the rail crossings are manned by a rail agent who stops the traffic and rolls a metal gate across the roadway to halt the traffic. Without the agent, the scores of motorbikes would probably try to through the crossing in front of the train.
At first the houses along the tracks looked to be squatters who’d built little tin sheds so close to the tracks you could reach out and grab a shirt from the laundry line hanging from the projecting corrugated awning. As we got further from the city, the houses got bigger until they began to resemble the oversized McMansions and gated communities of the United States. It would be fairly convenient to live out there, with train access to the city.
About an hour after we left, the train came to the end of the line, which was still another hour’s train ride from our destination. For whatever reason, they had chosen not to build a train trestle over the river, and we had to hop off and catch a ferry to the other side of the river in order to continue our trip. This is the kind of experience you’re going to miss when riding the tourist bus.
There were no signs indicating how to get to the ferry or the connecting train beyond. Fortunately, I’d read about the transfer on Seat 61 and looked at a map before we left. Just to be sure, Vora confirmed with one of the locals that we were headed in the right direction. The ticket for the ferry cost us the equivalent of 10 cents, and we boarded.
More than half the boat was filled with motor bikes. The ferry had pulled in with its long side against the pier, and motorcyclists agily drove their bikes aboard. After crossing the river, the ferry landed with its opposite side facing the pier so that the motorcyclists could just drive straight off.
We shared the ramp with the bikes as we walked to the top and through a market on the edge of the river. The departure time for the next train was running close, so we picked up the pace and found the train waiting at the next station with about 5 minutes to spare.
It was about an hour more to the Mae Khlong Market, and as we got close, I realized the mistake I’d made in riding the train to the market: I wouldn’t be able to film it going through the market. Not to worry. Vora, with her usual charm, asked the conductor the best way to see the train pull into the market, and he opened the window on the right side of the front car so she could stick her phone out and make a video of our approach.
I poked my head out the other side and was amazed by the number of people gathered to watch the train enter the station. It made me glad to be on the train which was relatively empty, and I would get my chance to record the folding market later.
The train came to a complete stop a block after the market. Vora and I hopped off while all of the picture taking tourists hopped on to take photos of themselves on the famous train. We walked along the tracks to the market which had closed up again to envelop the tracks. In fact, the only place to walk was between the two rails.
We were covered overhead by the awnings that had been drawn across the tracks to provide relief from the hot Thai sun. The stalls ran right to the edge of the rails on either side. In fact, shorter bins filled with live eels and produce are often left in place while the train passes over them to minimize the time it takes for the stalls to reopen after the train goes through.
Walking the rails with all of the tourists was an arduous task so we eventually ducked into a gap between stalls and proceeded into the main part of the market as it continued away from the tracks. Being so close to the Gulf of Thailand, most of the stalls displayed fresh seafood, and Vora was impressed by the cheap prices. With a long trip home still ahead of us, seafood didn’t make the list of things she picked up, but we did buy a bag full of smoked mackerel to eat on the return trip.
We had only 30 minutes between the time the train arrived and began its return journey. We considered waiting for the next train just so that we could be one of the tourists filming the train coming through the market, but there wasn’t enough there to justify the two hours we’d have to wait for the next train so we headed back to the station.
We hopped into the last car, this time hoping for the chance to watch the market close behind it as it left the station. We got an unexpected surprise when the conductor opened the door to the engineer’s compartment and invited us to go inside and document our departure. It seems that since the engineer was now in the front of the train, there was no reason we couldn’t occupy his compartment in the back.
This gave me the opportunity I had thought I’d missed, by being on the train, to film the train as it passed through the market and the awnings closing behind us. I was delighted to experience the spectacle from a vantage point I hadn’t seen in any of the online videos. As often happens with Vora, we managed to make an experience just a little more extraordinary.