This trip to Bangkok, Peter proposed exactly three activities:
1. Stay at the Atlanta Hotel and maybe write a little at their funky old writing desks.
2. Eat at Soul Food Mahanakorn.
3. Go to that crazy market that the train goes through.
I said, “OK, fine, but we have to go to Nahm too. And what market?”
“Watch the YouTube video,” he said.
Having so few goals for our trip is another “signature” of our travel style. Less is more, we tell each other, as we order another coffee. Even the train market sounded a little active for us, but that was trumped by the fact that it involved a train. Trains trump everything.
We scheduled the train market outing for a day with Rod. The trip required leaving our hotel at the ghastly hour of 7:30 a.m., so we were counting on his energy to propel us there.
The train market is in the town of Mae Khlong, aka Samut Songkran. To get there from Bangkok, you take two separate rinky-dink commuter trains, with a ferry in between.
Or, if you’re like us and get lost in the transfer town, you take two ferries, because the first one is the wrong one. Once it became clear how inept we were, a nice man walked us all the way to the proper ferry dock, past grilled squid, a live elephant and papasan chairs of shrimp paste.
The train market is a phenomenal two-in-one excursion, just made for Jack Sprat-ish spouses. She likes to shop? He likes trains? The Mae Khlong train market saves your marriage! I don’t really like to shop, and I don’t dislike trains, but we still made this joke a lot.
If you didn’t click over and watch that YouTube clip, here’s the gist: the train goes straight through the middle of the market. Before it does, everyone packs up all their stuff and pulls back their awnings and presses themselves back against the wall. What’s amazing is how quickly they put everything back and get back down to selling live eels, hacking up fish and all the other standard business.
So we lined up with the handful of other rail fanatics and watched the train go back out through the market, vendors standing frozen to the side, like stagehands waiting in the wings. We marveled and took a million photos. And then we walked around town for a few hours, got a foot massage, ate some fried chicken, as you do…
(As Peter points out, it just doesn’t seem fair that Thailand has this tremendous rich food culture, and they make perfect fried chicken on top of it all.)
Half an hour before the last train was set to leave, we took a spin through the rest of the market, the non-train-tracks part. It was late in the day, so it was almost deserted, but we could hear music coming from one end.
We rounded a wall, and there was a somewhat rowdy crew gathered around chatting, toasting each other and watching a delicate man in a crisp white shirt crooning karaoke. A few people were swaying to the tune.
We stood at the edge of the group for a moment, Peter and I settling easily into our hang-back-and-observe groove.
But Rod grabbed Peter by the elbow. “Let’s go talk to the tech guy. See what we can sing.”
The karaoke MC was just what you want in a small-town AV guy: curly hair, half-tint sunglasses, a couple of big amulets on gold chains dangling over his satin-finish shirt. Within seconds, he and Rod were scrolling through his library of songs in English. The delicate crooner soon reached the tear-jerking climax of his song, and Rod and Peter stepped up to the mike. A momentary hush fell over the market.
“Dancing Queen” has never been so warmly received. The crowd surged in close. Men pressed drinks, fresh peanuts and plates of spicy pork into my hands, and lined up cups to wait for Peter and Rod. Two people started a coordinated line dance in front.
Women advanced one by one to drape Peter and Rod in garlands or bashfully hand them long-stem roses. One of them poked me, nodding toward Peter, clutching her chest in a swoon.
As the song reached its crescendo, I checked my watch. Just about time for the train. In the wild applause that followed, Peter and Rod waved to the crowd, I gathered our belongings and slugged my Pepsi-and-whiskey and we all hustled for the exit, with cries of “Happy new year!” in Thai and English ringing out behind us.
We bounded onto the train, flushed and giddy, draped in flowers, already recounting the highlights.
“Did you see the guy doing the motorbike-revving dance?”
“That lady selling the fish was so in love with you!”
“And how did they refill my drink so fast?”
The train chugged out, and we squeezed into the rear cab to watch the market fall back into place as we passed, like the teeth of a zipper clicking together.
Soon we were out in the farmland between towns, rice paddies and shrimp ponds stretching away to either side. The conductor never came to kick us out of the rear cab. We felt very VIP. A man and his young son sat next to us, and we all watched the bumpy, narrow tracks unspool behind us.
When they got off at a small village, we gave the boy one of our garlands. The train pulled away, leaving the father and son walking together, each balancing on a rail and holding hands across the pebbled bed between them.
Peter and I sat back and watched. The pair on their parallel balance beams grew smaller, and eventually dissolved into the bluish haze. Even Rod was quiet.
“This was the best day,” he finally said. “The absolute best day.”