Amphawa: just magic

A while back I did a post about the Mahachai-Mae Klong-Amphawa route - a fantastic little day trip out of Bangkok, with trains, a railway market, boats, and canals. I didn't get to spend much time in Amphawa that time round, and my camera gave out before I got there, so I've been wanting to go back and do it properly for ages. And last week I did.


Everything about Amphawa is delightful. It's a tiny village with a wide canal as its main thoroughfare, crossed by an ever-busy bridge that joins two halves of the market, which spills over both banks. Boats selling fruit and fresh seafood, as well as ones carrying tourists off on adventures, go up and down the canal. There are gorgeous guesthouses and homestays, and firefly-watching boat trips at night. The bankside market sells traditional sweets, retro-kitsch souvenirs, and a whole bunch of (tastefully!) cute stuff from independent artisans and designers. There's a definite tourist vibe, but it's geared towards Thai rather than farang visitors, and there's a real sense that it's a community project - no big corporations, no same-same tacky market tat; a lot of the small businesses have adopted firefly motifs as a kind of unofficial town logo, and the drinks vendors even sell 'Amphawa'-branded bottled water.

An amble through the market yields up all sorts of things you didn't know you needed, plus a good few gifts for friends and relatives. And sweets. Lots of sweets. I have a particular weakness for 'golden' sweets - thong-yip, foi-thong, etc - and guess what was the very first stall was selling?

Not just foi-thong; foi-thong in ceramic boats. With a paddle for cutlery. Place could not be more charming if it was shaped like a kitten and knew how to waltz.

... and a few stalls further in was one selling some very pretty thong-ek, with dabs of gold leaf on them. This is the market's tragic flaw: there's so much delicious food being sold in it that you risk filling up before you reach the canal, and you really should eat at the canal. Restaurants are set up on steep waterside steps, with miniature stools and benches acting as chairs and tables. Below are rows of moored boats with their noses nuzzling together; each boat a little kitchen specialising in one or two dishes - some do grilled prawns, squid, crab, or scallops, others do pad thai or som tam. These get passed up the crowded steps to the tables, money passed down. It's worth doing this just for the experience of eating in what is essentially a 30-capacity restuarant crammed onto a set of canal steps (it's cosy!); the hot delicious freshness of the food is a wonderful bonus.


The one thing I was really sad to miss on my last visit was the temple, which got a mention in my guidebook for its murals - and I love me some murals. So I was excited to check them out this time. Wat Amphawan Chetirayam dates from the early Rattanakosin period. Formerly the residential palace of Queen Amarindaramas (wife of Rama I), and the birthplace of Rama II, it was later renovated by the Queen into a temple in memory of her mother. The murals are a mix between scenes from literature, from daily life, and from royal ceremonies. And they're stunning. I took more photos than I'll ever know what to do with - these are just a few of my favourites:

Behind the Buddha image is Rattanakosin Island, bursting with detail.

A royal funeral procession. As this was painted some time in the first two reigns, this is very possibly the first ever royal funeral, that of Rama I's father, for which these golden chariots (that are still used today; you can see them in the National Museum) were built. Amazing.

Krai Tong, hero from folklore, diving down with his magic spear, cloth, and candle to defeat the Crocodile King Chalawan.

Detail from one of the courtly-life scenes. A lady and her maid, presumably, but looking rather excellently sapphic.

I can't recommend this place enough. It's far enough away from the city to feel like a proper break, but close enough to do in a day - or an evening, if you drive. Or a weekend, which I'd love to try. (there'll just have to be a third post in this series!) For the full day's adventure, get the train from Wongwien Yai to Mahachai, then a ferry across the river and another train to Mae Klong (and check out the railway market), and a songtaew to Amphawa (all this is described in this post). There are also buses to and from the city.

Markets on Train-Tracks; Markets on Boats

A day trip for the whimsical and adventurous

This trip goes through a couple of little provinces south of Bangkok, but it's close enough and can be done in a day from Bangkok, so I'm putting it up here.

Some time last year, while chatting online to my friend Alex, she told me of a market she'd heard about that takes place on live train tracks, south of Bangkok. Being of a travelling and fantastical bent as we both are, this was high on our list of places to investigate during her stay in Thailand, and so off we set on a rainy morning: skytraining over to the Thonburi side of the river to hurry through the wet in search of Wongwien Yai railway station.

The station is tiny, train waiting right alongside the road, surrounded by market and boasting (in the mornings, at least) a fine selection of hot breakfast options along the platform. After buying our tickets for Mahachai (10 baht a head) and investigating the various food stalls, we sat at a khanom jeen seller's table and were able to hop from there straight onto the train when a departure announcement blared over our heads. (Note to anyone planning to do this trip - pick up a train schedule at Wongwien Yai, which has times for the Mahachai and Mae Klong trains - useful for thinking ahead and avoiding long waiting periods in middle-of-nowhere places).

The Mahachai train passes bursting greenery, tiny lopsided rows of houses, more markets, highway junctions, temples, little stations (some of these attached to temples), old wooden homes surrounded by water and little bridges. Our ride was pleasant, after the rain, watching the cooled-down land run past.

Reaching Mahachai (which I can vouch for as a wonderful place for a seafood lunch, from previous visits), we made our way through its sprawling market - selling all sorts of sea-creatures, fresh-water beasts and amphibians, dried and gulping-fresh and all states in between - to the harbour, where ferries were coming and going. According to our photocopied Lonely Planet page, we wanted the ferry to Bang Laem, so we asked around and boarded it - then waited an hour for it to depart, watching the other ferry make several trips back and forth across the harbour. When our ferry did eventually cross the water (with an increasingly agitated dog that had wandered onto it), it took us to a pier that led straight up to Bang Laem station, where another 10 baht got us a ticket for the next leg of our journey, to Mae Klong - though the train wasn't to leave for another hour.

An aside on that note - I'd advise anyone making this trip to check the time of the ferry, and if it's a long wait to either have a nice lunch in Mahachai, or get the more regular ferry and seek out a motorbike taxi to Bang Laem.

There are, however, several temples near Bang Laem station, so Alex and I took a meander around the station to see them. One was setting up for a fair, another had a Chinese cemetery attached. Then back to the station and onto the train, snacking on i-teem boran, passing through fields and salt flats, lulled by the motion and humidity into snoozing. As we trundled towards the end of the line we passed market-awnings pulled out of the train's way, still bare centimetres from the windows, held tightly back by shopkeepers. Disembarking, we hurried back the way the train had come, hoping to see the market setting itself back up... and found those same awnings on long poles, extending over our heads, making a shady corridor of the tracks. Produce was piled up on the ground, right up to the rails. It almost looked like an ordinary, undisturbed market alley, apart from a few tell-tale signs - the rails under our feet, well-stocked tables cosily close but resting on rollers, easy to pull back.


We went for a stroll about Mae Klong town, returning to the market in time (we thought) to see the train departing again. The market was as we left it, so we assumed the train had not yet been through - until we saw the station, empty. It was hard to believe the market had cleared - awnings, tables, vendors, shoppers and all - and restored itself in the time we'd been away; maybe the train had vanished into the air instead, or been eaten by the market. I was sad to have missed the sight of it setting back up behind the train, but have since found some youtube videos: this one of the train going by, filmed from the market, this one from the back of the train as it goes through.

More market pictures (my camera gave out after this, sadly, so no pictures from the end of the journey):


Near the market several large blue songtaew were parked, and we, asking how to get to our next destination, Ampawa, were directed to the number 1. This took us over canal-crossed land (and super-steep bridges) to the town of Ampawa, whose floating market makes a refreshing change from the tourist traps that Bangkok's floating markets have become. Ampawa is a tourist destination too, but one frequented by Thai rather than farang visitors, and it shows. The covered market sells kitsch countryside souvenirs like wind-up toys and old-fashioned sweets, and the floating market itself consists of boats that each cook and serve one or two dishes - we sampled the pad thai, prawn fritters, grilled scallops and Thai iced tea, perched on stools at the top of a steep flight of canal-side steps.

Ampawa's main temple also reportedly has some very fine murals (a particular cultural fetish of mine) which I didn't get the time to check out. It also looks like a charming place to stay for a night, with tiny guesthouses, little bars overlooking the canals, and the promise of fireflies at night - I guess I'll just have to go back...

But we needed to get back to Bangkok. There was a bus parked in the temple grounds, and knowing there are regular buses between Ampawa and Bangkok, I asked the driver if he was heading city-wards. He said yes, but this particular bus had been hired by a tour group - but after a quick chat they offered us a ride. There weren't enough seats for everyone - Alex was given a plastic chair in the aisle - and the group gave us both bottled water. We drove under the sunset through the salt flats, stopping at a market by the highway so members of the tour group could buy fruits and freshly-dried sea salt. On the road again, the tour leader raffled off Buddhist amulets, seat numbers picked from a hat by various tour members. It was a lovely, unexpected ending to the day. They dropped us at Central Rama II from where we took a bus to Silom, and a tuk-tuk back to mine. Silom was lined with police trucks and razor wire - something I'd almost managed to forget about during the day.

Resident or visitor, if you haven't taken the train to Mae Klong yet, go. It's cheap (the whole day cost me under 300 baht, including transport, two meals, snacks, and souveniers) and easy to do from the city but feels like a different world.