Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [188]
Damnoen Saduak Tourist Information Office (Th Sukhaphiban 1; 9am-5pm) This office, across from the floating market, can organise transport to outlying canal sites if you want a two- to three-hour tour. It also arranges for homestays and other canal trips.
Return to beginning of chapter
MAHACHAI RAIL LINE & AMPHAWA
If you want to get out of the city but don’t know where to go, this might be the perfect trip. The Mahachai Line, a rail spur originally built to link gulfside fishing ports with Thonburi and Bangkok, is a charming trip that sates the wanderlust by introducing you to the sort of Thai life you don’t see so much in Bangkok anymore. However, if you are the type that requires a destination, then the quaint canalside village of Amphawa definitely boasts enough atmosphere, accommodation and activities to warrant an overnight stay.
The adventure begins at Wong Wian Yai train station (Map; Th Taksin; bus 37; Wong Wian Yai). Just past the traffic circle (Wong Wian Yai) is a fairly ordinary food market that camouflages the unspectacular terminus of this commuter line.
After 15 minutes on the rattling train the city density yields to squat villages. From the window you can peek into homes, temples and shops built a carefully considered arm’s length from the passing trains. Further on, palm trees, patchwork rice fields and marshes filled with giant elephant ears and canna lilies line the route, punctuated by whistle-stop stations.
Samut Sakhon (Mahachai)
The backwater farms evaporate quickly as you enter Samut Sakhon, popularly known as Mahachai because it straddles the confluence of Mae Nam Tha Chin and Khlong Mahachai. This is a bustling port town, several kilometres upriver from the Gulf of Thailand, and the end of the first rail segment. Before the 17th century it was called Tha Jiin (Chinese Pier) because of the large number of Chinese junks that called here.
After working your way through one of the most hectic fresh markets in the country, you’ll come to a vast harbour clogged with water hyacinths and wooden fishing boats. A few rusty cannons pointing towards the river testify to the existence of the town’s crumbling fort, built to protect the kingdom from sea invaders.
Take the ferry across to Baan Laem (3B), jockeying for space with motorcycles that are driven by school teachers and errand-running housewives. From the ferry, take a motorcycle taxi (10B) for the 2km ride to Wat Chawng Lom, home to the Jao Mae Kuan Im Shrine, a 9m-high fountain in the shape of the Mahayana Buddhist Goddess of Mercy that is popular with regional tour groups. The colourful figure, which pours a perpetual stream of water from a vase in the goddess’s right hand, rests on an artificial hill into which a passageway is carved, leading to another Kuan Im shrine.
Beside the shrine is Tha Chalong, a train stop with two afternoon departures for Samut Songkhram (see below). The train rambles out of the city on tracks that the surrounding forest threatens to engulf, and this little stretch of line genuinely feels a world away from the big smoke of Bangkok.
Samut Songkhram
The jungle doesn’t last long, and any illusion that you’ve entered a parallel universe free of concrete is shattered as you enter Samut Songkhram. And to complete the seismic shift you’ll emerge directly into a hubbub of hectic market stalls. Between train arrivals and departures these stalls set up directly on the tracks, and must be hurriedly cleared away when the train arrives – it’s quite an amazing scene.
Commonly known as Mae Klong, Samut Songkhram is a tidier version of Samut Sakhon and offers a great deal more as a destination. Owing to flat topography and abundant water sources, the area surrounding the provincial capital is well suited to the steady irrigation needed to grow guava, lychee and grapes. A string of artificial sea-lakes used in the production of salt fill the space between Mae Klong and Thonburi.
Wat Phet Samut Worawihan, in the centre of town, near the train