Amazing ride with the Maeklong Railway

Start of the train to Mahachai station nearly every hours during daytime. The railway is independent of tracks with no connection to the Thailands common national rail net. The ticket costs 25 Baht = 0.63 € one way per person. Journey time on hour. Travelers who want to reach the station should exact explain that this station is Wongwienyai Station ( not the nearby larger Station Bangkok Noi , which is the station for trains to Southern Thailand and connected to the common National rail net.)

Last shopping for some snacks and candies at the station platform. The first glass case contains prepared pineapples already cut mouthpieces.

The one-hour-ride to Mahachai the station to change the train to the final destination Maeklong. Only local Thai people using this train most of the daily for the way to their place of work. We are the only foreigners (Farangs).

Lively commuter flow at the railway station.

Awesome experience to watch the daily grind of Thai people.

When you get our the station you're forced to pass many shopping stores. Close your eyes and go through.

This people haven't to wait a long time, the train starts to Wongwienyai Station almost every clock hour.

A small roundabout in front of the railway station in Maeklong allows to entry only for motorcycles and Samlos (three wheel motor taxis).

The stopover in Tha Chin for about two hors gives an opportunity to discover the interesting market in Tha Chin. Later at the evening we remained an other hours again for buying fresh and dry fish products. Tha Chin is famous under Thais for an extensive first degree fish market.

This concentrated product of finely ground fermented shrimps in sea salt has an even more compelling smell than its companion, fish sauce. There are vastly varying qualities, the odor differing accordingly. Many are undeniably foul-smelling, but there are a few brands that actually have a pleasant, albeit very powerful, roasted shrimp aroma. Many Westerners have unknowingly purchased gkapi because of its benign name, "shrimp paste," only to discover its true nature. Not having the faintest idea of what it is supposed to be like, some have tried to return the product, complaining to the store that it has rotted and spoiled. Like fish sauce, gkapi is rich in protein and B vitamins. It is an essential ingredient in making chilli pastes and curry pastes. Just about every curry paste has a dab or two of gkapi in it. When pounded and blended in with an array of aromatic herbs and spices, its powerful smell dissipates and actually makes the entire concoction very fragrant. When cooked into food, a little bit of this concentrated paste adds a whole lot of delicious shrimp flavor. A favorite use for gkapi among Thai people is as the primary ingredient in a very pungent dipping sauce for raw or lightly blanched vegetables and fried fish, called nahm prik gkapi. Wrapped in a banana leaf and roasted over hot coals, it is then pounded in a mortar with chillies and garlic, followed by the addition of lime juice, fish sauce and sugar to constitute an intensely hot, shrimpy and limy sauce. Other ingredients may be added to make other nahm prik (chilli dipping sauces), such as tiny, bitter pea-eggplants; fried dried shrimp; cooked and chopped fresh shrimp; young green peppercorns; sour tamarind and roasted maengdah, a roachlike insect with a most unusual fragrance. Nahm prik sauces are definitely for hard-core Thai food lovers only.

Most Thai love to eat the mangos before changing the color to yellow and getting sweet. Young and raw mangoes are used for many Thai dishes, not only for sweet meals and raw mangoes add a more delicate sour flavour to dishes and are featured in Thai salads such as Yam Ma-muang and in chilli dips.

In Bangkok downtown trishaws are banned for keeping a fluent traffic. However this taxis moved with human power still is a common scene every where in Thailand provincial places. The Thai trishaw (rickshaw) is called "SAMLO" (สามล้อ) in Thai language. It means "three wheels".

Salted fish or is one of the oldest ways to preserve fresh fish in order to prevent them from decaying. Before refrigeration technique was invented, fish and other seafood were cured in salt or salt water. Many kinds of fish are salted. Common ones are stingray, mackerel, tuna, brass and jack.

Dried in the sunlight, this kind of preserved fish products isn't missing in any thai household and the base for many Thai dishes. (I love to eat the dry squid, roasted and then rolled to long and fine strips, dipped in a sauce with pitched peanuts, chili powder and a sweet salty palm sugar sirup. Then I often share my consumption with a lot of cats.)

There is a famous and excellent sea food restaurant close to the pier where we'll stop to have our dinner after our day excursion. A delicious completion of a marvelous day.

Ticket fee to cross the river is 2 Baht (0,05 €) the moped does not cost a surcharge.

Other ferry boats at the pier ready to bring the thousands of commuters to the other riverside each day.

There isn't a better opportunity to come so close to Thai commuters. We, my friend Alex and me, were the only long nose foreigners.