Thai Railways: From Bad to Worse

I remember long ago, I used to have a sort of hazy, romantic illusion about the wheezing and aged State Railway of Thailand (SRT), as an overburdened transportation agency doing its best.

In that long ago age, twenty years ago specifically, as a Peace Corps volunteer, it was one of the few options for long-distance travel through a city choked with traffic jams, and about a country with only one overpriced domestic service flying out of Don Muang (this was well before the low-cost airline options came onto the scene).  My site was also located next to Khaochumthong Junction, which has the noteable distinction of having a song specifically written about it.

Old Tracks (Kanchanaburi)

Today, unfortunately, that romantic vision is long gone, and I mainly look upon the SRT with a mixture of disgust, disbelief, and sadness.  This is a bit sad.  I come from a "train-loving" family (my parents have sought out and gone on many a train trip around the world), and I generally seek out train transport, even in the United States. 

My feelings about Thai rail, of course, weren't at all improved last week, as I and the rest of the country absorbed the news about the sickening death of a 13-year-old girl, who was raped and killed, and thrown out of the window of the moving train, by a drunken baggage porter. 

Reality and Randomness

Yesterday, I was at the Gallery Drip Coffee in the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center, listening to some music on my laptop and watching the traffic crawl back and forth in front of MBK Center, all to the pleasant aroma of slow-drip, hand-poured coffee.


It was a peaceful afternoon.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Peaceful is needed. I am on the cusp of more big changes in my life, and am aware of the inexorable dislocation to come, the need to get things done before this big change, to meet up with people, and say my goodbyes yet again. What is it about this world and the frequency of goodbyes? Do departures mean as much anymore when everyone from Merriam Elementary School (my beginning) to Thammasat University (my latest job) are a click away on Facebook?


Well, they do to me, perhaps because I've been through so many of them (welcome to the expatriate lifestyle) especially the face-to-face ones - with the imperfect pauses, the need to say something but not knowing what exactly, the last hurried hugs, and the wakes left after one's departure ... it's a new globalized world, but we're all processing essentially the same stuff we always have been, the comings and goings that pepper our lives.