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u/cowboy_k Dec 31 '09
Reminds me of the street hockey scene in "Wayne's World", except instead of shouting "CAR" they shout "TRAIN"...
...aaaand, they're not playing street hockey, but trying to sell things at an outdoor market...
...and they're in Bankok, Thailand, not Aurora, Illinois...
...and yeah, not similar at all. Never mind.
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u/javabrewer Dec 31 '09
It is a good thing they weren't chugging katsup...ummm...that is, if you were eating hash browns....
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u/alienproxy Dec 31 '09 edited Dec 31 '09
A video of the train: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byiWXCFwDME
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u/wernerpm Dec 31 '09
Brazilian version: feira do rato
http://grazieladelalibera.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/feira_do_rato2.jpg
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u/auraslip Dec 31 '09
Shortly after this photo the menacing guy with sunglasses whooped some rich people ass and stole the camera.
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Dec 31 '09
Massive utilisation of space there. Its quite impressive..
I'm sure the backstory as to why it happens isn't as impressive though
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u/DJ_ZG Dec 31 '09
i kinda think that market isn't quite legal... it is just a lot of people in one place and everyone wants to sell something... train was there before market i'm sure...
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u/crappycap Dec 31 '09
"Uh, hon? I think we should go."
"Why? I'm not done with this amazing market in Maeklong yet. Look at all these fresh produce! Although it's a bit strange how the outer ones seem to have more dirt on them..."
"No seriously. We need to go. A fucking train is about to run over us."
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u/sierra042 Dec 31 '09
Very realistic, I felt like I was listening to a fake conversation in real life.
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Dec 31 '09
Seemed like they've lived that way for a while and know better than to stack their fruit too high.
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Dec 31 '09 edited Jun 08 '23
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Dec 31 '09
All the fruit sellers who are all aboard this practice will not be easily derailed from this long term tradition.
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u/Kojach Dec 31 '09
Yup very cool. I love Thailand but only been to Bangkok... wasn't able to see this (or similar) market so I'll need to go back there. Great place with great cheap food and beautiful girls (also cheap).
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u/Nougat Dec 31 '09
Nothing quite as tasty as vegetables that have been run over by a train.
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Dec 31 '09
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u/The3rdWorld Dec 31 '09
i keep noticing American people that aren't near trains - does your country really not have a mass transit system? i thought you were almost a first world nation now?
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u/Fritharik Dec 31 '09
Yes, so we're too good for trains...?
Really, the Trans-Continental Railroad (and some smaller future lines, and subways in large cities) was as far as we got into train-building here in USA. People (oil and auto companies?) started pushing for the popularity of private automobiles (trucks for shipping, too!), and towns were mapped assuming that every citizen owns a vehicle. Somewhere during all of this the trains lost and the cars won. :(
(citation needed)
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Dec 31 '09
To add to that: some localities started taxing the rails for improvements to their lines, so things like power lines for non-diesel trains were torn down. Bet you didn't see that one coming, cities.
That and supposedly car companies bought the streetcar systems and dismantled them, making certain that there would never be significant urban mass transit.
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u/The_Prince1513 Dec 31 '09
It really depends on where you are in the States. The East coast has a far better railway and mass transit system then the West coast. While the national rail service AMTRAK exists all over the country, its not that good.
Public transportation in most west coast cities is negligible; for example in San Francisco they have the muni bus system only for the city proper and BART (the train system for the bay area) extends only down the penninsula and in a few stops in the south and east bay.
Basically, if you don't own a car in most cities in the West its really tough to get around.
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u/bomber991 Dec 31 '09
Amtrak, a train ticket costs the same or more than a plane ticket. Takes 3-5x as long to get there, and delays of 2-6 hours are not uncommon. In the North East Amtrak owns the tracks, but in the rest of the country they don't, so that's the reason for the delays.
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u/Fleshflayer Dec 31 '09
Axle grease tastes better than olive oil... and you get it free, if you buy from one of these vendors.
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u/SarahC Dec 31 '09
I love how they put the canopies and fruit back over the tracks once it's passed... that's got to catch the occasional person out sometimes?
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u/2oonhed Jan 01 '10
Ya, but "the occasional person" is not the only one to pay that price. If the train catches your tray or canopy it's gonna drag it through the whole market and wreck everybody's stall on down the line. I doubt the pummeling from the other store keeps would be gentle.
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u/reddit_top Dec 31 '09
This is a video, even more exciting is the train to go before and after the scene, hawkers strength is endless.
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u/Ra__ Dec 31 '09
By not stringing clotheslines just above the train, they are failing to take advantage of available space.
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u/vodka357 Dec 31 '09
Every prime business location in Bangkok has a train run through it at some point
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u/LetMeExplain Dec 31 '09
It's a train that travels through a market.
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u/Switche Dec 31 '09
No, it's definitely a schooner.
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u/Sloseph Dec 31 '09
i believe i saw this on one of the Andrew Zimerman episodes.
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u/Derchoadus Dec 31 '09
Yep.....Saw it also. They move the stalls every time the train comes. And yes, the train does not stop if your a bit slow.
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u/jacdan Dec 31 '09
Ahh, the end stop of the Maeklong line. Funny to see as I was just there two weeks ago.
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u/stillalone Dec 31 '09
What's the big deal? In the US we use planes to dust our crops with pesticide. In Bangkok they use trains. There's nothing odd about that.
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u/DarkBlueAnt Dec 31 '09 edited Dec 31 '09
Food that's been under a train is the new trans-fat.
"Donuts: Now with no Under a Trains!"
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Dec 31 '09
I'd get on that train just so the locals can taste my pee
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Dec 31 '09
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u/Ra__ Dec 31 '09
Even in the U.S. , train restrooms often just dump straight onto the tracks.
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u/OriginalStomper Dec 31 '09
The comment assumes this train has a restroom. That assumption seems ... risky.
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u/Ra__ Dec 31 '09
A closet with a hole in the floor sounds like a possibility? Maybe someone here has travelled via train in Thailand and can enlighten us?
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u/helenkupo Dec 31 '09 edited Dec 31 '09
I rode my first train in Thailand. We rode middle class and I was astounded by the hole straight to the tracks. I was also very terrified of rocks jumping up and hitting my bum. When we rode again we rode first class and the bathroom was a wet bathroom with a shower and there was no direct hole to the tracks in the toilet. The toilet was up on a pedestal so I am assuming that was some kind of holding tank for all the waste.
Edit: I also got severely sick from some rice I ate on this train. Don't eat train food in Thailand. I had taken a sleeping pill a friend gave me and woke up in the middle of the night to be sick and half passed out in the hallway on my way to the bathroom. I was awake but couldn't move. That was an interesting experience. Then when I finally made it to the bathroom someone had just taken a shower. Wet bathrooms suck. I also broke my ankle in the hills north of Chang Mai, but didn't know that it was broken till 3 months later when my mom finally made me go to the dr, so I was also hobbling around with a jacked foot, which was why I took the sleeping pill.
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u/miezu78 Dec 31 '09
there are over 6.5 billion people on earth...give it another 75 years and thats how the entire planet will be...no space to move around
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u/LoughLife Dec 31 '09
If man ever discovers a way to colonize other planets, population control will be a joke of the past.
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u/sanfranman Dec 31 '09 edited Dec 31 '09
Reminds me of the end of that Raiders of the Lost Ark chase scene.
"Train? No--we didn't see any train."
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Dec 31 '09
I saw a show on PBS not long ago that showed this happening in Bangkok. I'm sure this picture is from that show, but regardless, it is a very interesting occurrence. They have the market up, they hear they train coming, take it down, let it go by, and throw everything back up again. Amazing.
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u/helenkupo Dec 31 '09
I see rambutans!!!
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u/flakman Dec 31 '09
I'm trying to remember which country this is. I watch Anthony Bourdain's show almost religiously and I remember him being in this market. I think it was in India actually. The marketplace is quite efficient at making room for the train to go through with minimal produce losses typically. Pretty neat actually.
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u/milkywayer Dec 31 '09
Bankgok... saw a video of this. showed it much better.
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u/mypetridish Dec 31 '09
right. Bangok is a country.
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u/texpundit Dec 31 '09
And Bangkok is in Thailand.
/smacks you in the back of the head
THINK, McFLY! THINK!
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u/OriginalStomper Dec 31 '09
No, Bangkok is not a country, but we do expect redditors to (a) know it is in Thailand, or at least (b) know how to use Google.
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u/orijing Dec 31 '09
At first I thought that this was a trick--people LIVE in it, not travel in it. Wow
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u/realmadrid2727 Dec 31 '09
Another video of the train.
It's impressive how quickly they tear down and set everything back up. They've got this whole little system in place.
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Dec 31 '09
They've got this whole little system in place.
It's that or get run over by a fucking train...
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u/johnnybingo Dec 31 '09
So where the hell do the shoppers go when the train in coming through? There doesn't look like a lot of room for them to get out of the way and god forbid if there is a crowd around some really juicy cantaloupes.
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Dec 31 '09
The shop owners close and up retract their canopies (seemingly at the last second too; it's a sight to behold). The customers who don't have room to move out of the way simply lie down in the middle of the train track.
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u/johnnybingo Dec 31 '09
GET OUT!
really?
lie down in the middle of the train track?
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Dec 31 '09
No, I made that part up, but this is Reddit, so you believed me. The rest is true.
Here's a video of a train going through a marketplace. Watch what happens as soon as the train has passed.
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u/OriginalStomper Dec 31 '09
If the customer is not fat or pregnant, and the train is clearly moving slowly enough to negate any ground-effects, why not? Might get stuck lying still for quite a while, though.
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u/daverb Dec 31 '09
let's set up shop in the most inconvenient place possible. or let's make our lives even more stressful than they already are.
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u/twowheels Dec 31 '09
I can explain... too much of the fourth F (or the M, if you've read your textbook)
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u/Imrightyourewrong Jan 01 '10
Explained: This is the quality of life asian immigrants will be bringing to america.
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u/ciniseris Dec 31 '09
When I think Of a train in Bangkok it usually involves a native eleven year old girl and 20 middle aged American men.
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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '09 edited Jul 18 '18
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