Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
blooms, and the place is frequently lively with gatherings, for it is a focal point for local
rallies and community activities. Around the circle is a large selection of shops, promin-
ent amongst them the haunted shell of the Merry King department store, closed for many
years now, the darkened entrance to its basement carpark the stuff of B-grade werewolf
movies.
Just off the circle is Thailand's strangest railway line. The Mahachai-Mae Klong line
was built by the Tha Cheen Railway Company under a private concession and opened in
early 1905, its purpose being to bring fish and farm produce from the coast. The trains
run down to the Tha Cheen River, near to where it empties into the sea at Samut Sak-
hon, a fishing port also known by its older name of Mahachai. There is no bridge there
so everyone disembarks, catches a ferry, and boards a train on the other side, which then
goes further along the coast to Samut Songkhram, or Mae Klong. Both stretches are the
same length, almost thirty kilometres. The line is completely independent of the national
railway system and is a single track. Although Wong Wian Yai is the terminus, it is the
most modest terminus that can be imagined, for passengers simply walk through a gap
between two blocks of nondescript commercial buildings on Somdet Phra Chao Taksin
Road, and the platform and ticket office is there, sitting next to the pavement. Railway
anoraks love this line, as indeed does anyone who travels on it, because it is rather like a
grown-up train set that winds its way out of the city and through the rice fields, orchards
and plantations. They coo over its whimsical rolling stock and wayside stations, marvel
at the occasionally wiggly rail lines, and hold their breaths during the rainy season as the
little trains plough manfully through the lakes that appear at certain stretches, the line dis-
appearing under the muddy water and no one being quite sure whether or not the rail bed
has dissolved. The grand soul-sucking moment for everyone comes when the train eases
into the centre of the market at Samut Songkhram, where railway and market are not eas-
ily distinguishable, the stallholders politely removing their produce from the sleepers and
folding their umbrella shades to allow it through. The Thais have a wry sense of humour,
and the market is known locally as Talad Lom Hoop, or “Closing Umbrella Market”. Des-
pite its Toytown quality, the Mahachai-Mae Klong line is a hard-working one with a fre-
quent service, crowds of commuters along with pickups stacked high with boxes of fish,
fruit and vegetables regularly emerging between the two grimy buildings at Wong Wian
Yai and adding to the general traffic chaos.
There is a narrow road that runs alongside the railway track. Liap Thang Rot Fai is al-
most rural, with old timber houses and modest brick buildings along the route, the clam-
our and traffic of Wong Wian Yai left behind within minutes. A lone foreigner trudging
