The Local

I figure Joy and I logged about 100 miles, give or take, which to me qualifies as getting out of the rut. At one stage we were forced to literally hop a train as it chugged through what minutes before had been a fully functioning market along its tracks. Vendors pulled back (just far enough) the awnings and umbrellas that had been shading them all afternoon, as the two-car train passed centimeters away from their produce and fish.

Being veteran travelers, we figured out after about half an hour that this was not the express. Most of the other passengers weren’t heading all the way into Bangkok, but instead waited for their village to come into view and then started hauling a week’s worth of purchases toward the open door.

Eventually Joy’s seatmate got up as if the next stop were hers. As the train slid into a station she surprised me by flinging a full bag full of papayas onto the platform. Many of our fellow voyagers followed suit, tossing fruit of every description through the windows. Yet not a soul stepped down out of the train, for fear of being bowled over by monkeys. At the first sight of the too-ripe food, a stampede descended from who knows where to begin what apparently is a regularly scheduled feast.