By third class train to Lopbury

Thailand, Lopbury,
23-01-2010.

It is only fifteen Baht for the one hour train trip from Ayutthaya to Lopbury, third class means wooden benches and surrounded by Thai locals - I presume all the Farang backpackers must have taken the two hours earlier more expensive express train, air-conditioned and with a restaurant carriage...

Not that the absence of a restaurant carriage is much of a problem, food vendors wurm themselves through the overcrowded train waggons selling all sorts of titbits of tasty mouthwatering food, barbecued chicken legs on a iron plate, meat balls on small wooden sticks, a small kid easily manouevering himself through the shaky corridors carrying a plate with plastic cups of steaming chicken soup, cut up fruit aplenty and huge containers with cans of iced coffee, beers and soda pops resting in a bed of ice cubes...

Young local mothers keeping half asleep babies in their arms, watch me shyly from under half closed eye lids while their husbands knock down a can of cold Chang - It is Thailand for real when travelling third class on a local train!!!

Outside the rice paddies of Thailand's vertile central low lands glide by. I watch people work under a blaring sun covering their whole bodies with faded clothes against the fierce rays of the sun - I seem to remember countless horror stories by the many Hot Mommas from the impoverished Isan provinces, working these same fields for up to twelve grueling hours a day and still having to tend to the household chores once back home. No wonder they all come down to fabled Pattaya or maybe Patong Beach on Pucket in the hopes of marrying a Farang husband...too sad so many end up having to sell their bodies to overweight s*x tourists from far-away Farang countries, their hopes shattered and their bodies ravaged after years of alcohol abuse due to the many alcoholic parties their Farang boyfriends wanted them to participate in...

The ruins and ancient Wads in Lopbury seem to be favourite haunts for resident monkey gangs - the Macaque type - that use the city's electrical cables hanging across the buzy roads as free monkey highways, a transport mode to get from one archelogical site to the next following the hordes of local and Farang tourists alike, wherever the pickings are best I guess.