KANCHANABURI

Day 21 – 23.10.2016

Today we headed to Kanchanaburi. On our way we stopped at a very special market, called the Mae Glong Railway Market. This market is special as it is built ontop of still functioning railway tracks. This means that whenever a train comes in to the station the vendors quickly remove all their products from the track, the train passes and afterwards they return everything they are selling back to it’s original position.

We had just arrived at the market when the first train was coming into the station. Where we were standing it was quite crowded because several tourists have found their way to this market, so I only got a small glimpse of the removing goods process and of the train itself.

We knew though, that the train would leave the station half an hour later again and so we roamed the market for breakfast until it was time for the spectacle to repeat itself.

If I am not completely mistaken, on the left hand side you can see fingerling ginger.

Each stall has it’s own tricks to cope with the train. Some vendors have these rails and tables on wheels to just move their stuff forwards and backwards, others display their products on baskets that they can easily remove.

Some morning glory:

The typical Thai eggplants.

It was already quite warm at the market and we were glad to be walking under a canopy of tents. All of these tent flaps to get lifted up in order for the train to pass through.

Some amazing fruit on the left – they look a little like litshi on the inside. However they are actually Long Kong!!

The train in the station.

It is quite a tight market and there are a lot of tourists with similar intentions. Sometime I feel bad because we don’t come to the market to buy products for our next meal such as fish and meat, but just stroll around and look at everything, maybe even blocking a vendor from potential customers by being such a large group.

A free view without the tourists.

This is special fish that is sold at this market. Its special characteristics is that its head is turned and bent in the steaming bowl to make it fit.

The vendors are getting ready for the train as it is about to leave the station.

Some vendors leave their products on the tracks if they are low enough. For example this dried fish.

Here it comes!

After the train has passed the vendors are quick to reposition their goods on the rails.

These are not carrots but little shrimp.

Century eggs. These are duck eggs that have been processed for 100 days or more in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months, depending on the method of processing. Through osmosis the egg takes up all the rich flavours eventually changing into a black jelly. They are coloured pink in order not to confuse them with regular duck eggs.

This vendor also sold cats – no just kidding, it’s a tourist petting the cat trap and buying some eggs while youre at it.

The rest of the market aside and around the tracks.

These little langoustines? have blue claws.

We tried this combination of slightly spicy crab meat fried in batter. Absolutely delicious as it came straight out of the frier.

Dried fish and sea food.

We also tried some of these crispy dried fish and they weren’t too bad! A bit sweet but good.

Absolutely stunning pineapple!!

The following was just pure heaven: This is made from a batter made of rice flour, baked to be like a pancake (the pan on the top). This is then dunked into a mixture of sugar, black sesame seeds and if I remember correctly some nuts too. Outside the mixture is crispy, inside it is still a little gooey.

This was also very good. The rice flour mixture is added into this pan to make little halves. Then chives are added to half of them and the two halves are joined and cooked once more to produce little balls of yum!

After this exciting morning where we literally hadn’t stopped eating and trying out new things we headed over tot he Tha Kha floating market.

Some Kaffir limes:

The stalls here are on boats all along the canal.

The vendors sell everything from their boats, and even some have fireplaces and large pots on their boats from which they sell their home / boat cooking.

We hopped into a couple of the longer boats and headed off to explore the nearby canals to go to a palm tree / coconut plantation to learn how palm sugar is made.

The whole process of making palm sugar starts of with the palm blosssom. This is the flower out of which coconuts eventually grow. When this blossom emerges it is bent in order to fit it nicely into metal or bamboo containers. Still attached to the palm tree, the blossom is slightly cut and its juice drips into the canister. This works best at night. (Works a bit like rubber).

Metal and bamboo containers.

The juice is then filtered and brought in to be heated up. By this process the sugar is extracted and when ready set to harden in molds out of which the palm sugar is then sold. Below the different bowls can be seen in which the liquid is boiled. (It wasn’t in use when we were at the plantation, since the couple doing it were invited to a wedding that day – nevertheless Soon gave us a great explanation on the process.

More images from the plantation:

They use the old palm leaves as firewood and the white bamboo pole on the right as a natural ladder to reach the palm blossoms on the top of the tree or the fresh coconuts.

If you can spot it – a blossom inside a metal cannister.

Back on the boat we got and headed back through several plantations for lunch.

These were little dumplings made from rice noodles with a spicy vegetarian filling.

We had some lovely soup with pork and pad thai noodles. You can always spice it up if you feel like it – and everytime I do, I feel like it helps to cope with the heat (temperature) outside.

For desert – some lovely coconut icecream with peanuts, straight out of the coconuts we had our juice out of.

We headed back onto the mini van and on our way to Kanchanaburi we stopped at the largest stupa in Thailand. (Inside there are small reliques of the Buddha – burried in its base.)

At our stop we tried some different flavours of the sticky rice in a bamboo stick – just like the one I had tried in Cambodia. This time it had egg custard and some bean like mixture in it – didn’t quite reach what I had had in Cambodia where there were coconut flakes in there aswell.

We finally arrived at our guest house in Kanchanaburi. Kanchanaburi is famous for being next to the river Kwai. The only thing I had known from the River Kwai were a couple of poems – but I had never really heard about the Death Railway and the significance of the bridge over the river Kwai. I had plans to see the museum of the death railway the next day – where I learned more about the history (which is where I will write about the story a little more)

We walked over to the bridge, just in time to actually witness the train pass the bridge. (So many trains in just one day!)