“Would you like to go to a disco with me? Or if not, how about the movies? Maybe we could see Toy Story 4.”
Possibly the disco in mind
Both interesting options, with pros and cons, the major con being my wife and I had never met the English gentleman asking the question. He was a random bloke on the street who just came up to us.
After giving our profuse apologies, (though I was very tempted to see what old mate had in store for the “disco” option) we went on our way.
London is like that. You never know who you’re going to encounter as you wander. Like Bangkok. There was an elderly Thai couple that would busk on our street. He would play a MacGyvered string instrument and back his wife’s lead vocals. They had a prime spot out the front of a Starbucks and we would always give them some baht, which was always returned with a nod and a smile mid-song.
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Every city has characters. Our first time in Paris quite a few years ago, we were having dinner in a bistro in a residential area, and a striking gentleman (quite possibly homeless, apologies monsieur if you are not) wandered past. He was dressed in an amazing coat (no, not technicolour), accessorised with an old school cassette recorder around his neck, attached with a piece of rope. All very très très chic and reminiscent of the very non-PC fashion line in the Zoolander movie… Derelicte.
I have encountered many characters in Sydney as well. Martin Place in the city’s CBD seems to be a magnet. One bloke would yell “GARN GET FUCKED!!” at everyone, yet no one in particular. Another would quote Shakespeare in an extremely resonant, thespian style… I would contribute the odd line if he forgot and I happened to remember.
Then there’s the bloke in Munich who prefers to live in a mobile phone shop doorway, a busker who plays the pan flute and stands out not only in his herbal, hippy outfits, but is the only burgher in the city who has a smile on his face.
To misquote the old TV show Naked City, there are eight million stories in the naked city. These have been just a few of them.
I’m very average at charades. Come to think of it, I had never attempted it / them — until the other day. I was pathetically trying to demonstrate to several bemused Thai guys the difference between a clothes dryer that works, and the ornament loafing in our new apartment in Bangkok.
Sadly, this was not one of the men in our shower
Hilarious.
Though my piece of resistance was the earlier performance of good v crap water pressure.
This involved comedically graphic arm and thumb-up and thumb-down movements. Momentary panic set in when I was trying to recall whether “thumbs up” was considered offensive in Thailand. Apparently not — only in Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria and random bits of Italy and Greece.
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Standing in the bathroom gesticulating wildly and extremely expressively about the strength of our taps made me realise that this is why we travel or have a moving experience to another country.
It’s all about the experiences — whether posing for the OTS (Obligatory Tourist Shot) in front of your global landmark of choice, to a more obtuse, yet equally memorable mental snapshot such as encountering a work-experience scam artist in Paris, who severely needed to work on his pitch (that story is for another time.)
Travel – and life – is merely a set of experiences nailed together… appreciate and enjoy every one of them.*
*At the risk of sounding like one of those rather shitty inspirational quotes on an even shittier desktop calendar.
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The next time you’re down at your local mall, imagine this scenario.
Eight times a day, the shopkeepers have to interrupt their business, quickly pull down the roofs of their shops, drag their goods inside, then stand against their shop fronts breathing in – to let a train go through.
That’s right, a train. A big, steel, commuter train travelling quite fast, straight through the middle of the mall. Sound bizarre? Welcome to the Mae Klong railway market in small town Thailand.
I’d seen the various YouTube videos of the market that had pinged around millions of inboxes, so when I was in Bangkok, I wanted to see it for myself.
The town of Mae Klong is about 72 kilometres south west of Bangkok. Mae Klong is the local name for Samut Songkhram, the capital of the Samut Songkhram province and district.
I had expected the market to be in the middle of nowhere but it’s right in the centre of town, the last 100 metres before the station. It’s quite surreal in a temporary sort of way, like a movie set. The only place to walk is in the centre of the rather narrow railway tracks. Small stalls line both sides, every available bit of real estate is used, low plastic trays of vegetables and vibrant Thai fruit including rambutans and mangosteens, are stacked right up to the steel rails. What happens when the train comes through? I had flashbacks about that wonder kitchen gadget, the Chop-o-matic, which “slices, dices and juliennes!”
The market is your veritable one-stop-shop. Spectacular fresh-cut flowers, every fruit and vegetable you can imagine, fragrant spices, cuts of meat, poultry and seafood so fresh, it was being persuaded to stop flapping about by an earnest man wielding a lump of wood. There are kids’ toys, clothes, lingerie, thongs of both varieties, dodgey DVDs – you name it. Makeshift awnings – tarpaulins, even a bedspread – cover the stalls. They combine to give the market a temporary roof that is quite low, so I had to stoop to walk through. It was fairly dark under the awnings, with a pungent buffet of unrefrigerated fish, meat and cut fruit, garnished with spices.
Some of the stalls are basic; others well set up. Some aren’t even stalls, just people sitting beside the tracks with fruit laid out at their feet. My guide, Mr Ooh, said many of the stallholders live outside town on outlying farms, coming in to sell their produce. I wanted to photograph an old lady running a fruit stall. Mr Ooh asked her for me; she smiled, fixed her wispy grey hair and posed in the middle of the track.
Then it happened. The shopkeepers calmly but quickly started folding down the awnings. Most were held up by poles, a simple but effective design. Trays of produce were dragged in; some more high-tech versions were on wheels. It happened in a chain reaction, odd because I hadn’t heard a train whistle or horn, but the timetable is adhered to fairly well. I was engrossed in photographing the stall owners when I felt a touch on my arm: a lady gently but firmly motioned to me that I should move back. I wasn’t sure exactly where to, but I ducked into a small alcove. Lucky I did.
The train rounded the corner and rumbled through the market. I was surprised at its speed. There were only inches to spare between the train, the produce on the ground and me. The two carriages were past in a flash of grey and yellow and milliseconds later, the stallholders were on the tracks putting up the awnings, even before the train had disappeared from view. It was as though nothing had happened.
I wandered down to the other end of the market. I knew the train would depart the station soon but I lost track of time, engrossed. I was only vaguely aware of the awnings being lowered again, then turned around to see a great mass of locomotive bearing down on me. Deceptively quiet, trains. This time there was no guiding arm to safety, no trusty alcove to be found, so I jammed myself up against a wooden board, breathing in as the train almost gave me a Brazilian as it not-quite hurtled by.
I’m not sure what “stupid tourist” is in Thai, but I’m sure it was being thought by a few people, smiling of course. I read somewhere that only two people have been killed at the market and I suggest they weren’t Thais. Then it was over, back to the rambutans being sold, fish being whacked, racy lingerie being purchased, until the next train on the timetable.
The Mae Klong railway market raises plenty of questions. I wanted to know how long it’s been operating and why it’s there. I tried to get answers from tour guides, government departments and even the stallholders. No one seems to know. The seventh person I was put through to at a tourism office told me the market had been there for more than 50 years. Now I was getting somewhere.
“So what was there first, the market or the railway line?”
“Both at the same time.”
“OK, can you tell me why the market is there on the railway tracks?”
“This is Thailand, there doesn’t need to be a reason.”
And really, it doesn’t matter – it’s just a snapshot of life in a small town in Thailand, people going about their daily business, doing their shopping, just being interrupted eight times a day by a bloody big hunk of steel.
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