The Washington Post’s Southeast Asia Real Time blog is offering an interesting footnote to a story about Thailand that has captured international attention.
As reported by CNN and other news organizations, the Talad Sieng Tai market, which resides some 78-kilometers south of Bangkok, possesses the unique feature of existing atop a set of working railroad tracks. Eight times daily, trains pass through the market, forcing vendors to rapidly pack up their wares in order to avoid being run over.
After gaining international attention, the market became a prime destination for tourists, but, as the WSJ reports, this is causing problems for vendors.
In addition to babysitting bus-loads of visitors, vendors now have to contend with the looming possibility that their interlocutors will become injured, thereby drawing down the wrath of the State Railway of Thailand, which could close the market at a moment’s notice, stripping all its residents of their livelihoods.
The article and its accompanying video offer an interesting angle on Thailand’s typically propitious tourist environment – an angle well worth exploring if we may say so.
Photo: YouTube
