This market is actually on a real lively railway!
Rom-Hoop Market (Th: ตลาดร่มหุบ) is the name of market on the railway in Samut Songkhram province which is about 1.5 hrs away from Bangkok.
This railway is for the short train ride between 2 cities (about 18 stations) of Samut Sakhon and Samut Songkram are along the ocean, south from Bangkok. The market opened since 1905 at Maeklong station in Samuth Songkhra province with no clue why they started the market here, ON THE RAILWAY!!!
For personal car (GPS: 13.40752, 100.00000), you’ll find free parking at Wat Baan Lam (TH: วัดบ้านแหลม, drive cross the railway, the parking is opposite the temple).).
Hired car is a great idea if it comes with the driver (super great if you have the tour guide with you).
But if you are an adventure tourist, you can take the BTS to Victory monument at Exit 2, there is a public van to Samut Songklam or Maeklong at 80-100 baht…you may have to check how to find this van on the way back!
Rom-Hoop, the name of this market, Rom is an umbrella (or shelters from this market), HOOP (short sound) means closing or shutting your umbrella. It’s named from the way that all of the vendors close or shut their shelters when the train goes through. It’s a funny name as it used to be scary, kind of like “Death Risk Market” in Thai (TH: ตลาดเสี่ยงตาย)…
Honestly, this is a really REAL local market life, NOT MADE for tourists!
So if you would like to see the train goes through the market, you have to arrange your time to be there.
There are about 8 times a day, in and out for the train schedule. BUT do not expect to see it on time, it might be delayed or changed. So once you get there, you better walk to check the real time schedule at Maeklong Staion (the red board, right picture below).
Just like our trip today, I could catch the first train at 9.10 am and I thought I could wait for another train to come at 11.10 as scheduled. But it was delayed to 12.10 – which is too long to wait for us!
But once the train come blows its horn, remember that everything happens in minutes! And this is my best picture that I could get!!!
After the train passed the market and after I blinked my eyes, all the shops come right back on the railway just like NOTHING happened before!!!
The real local life is going on…but for us, we were still so amazed at what just happened!
I wished that the train would come back and do it again for us!!! It’s really crazy and authentic!!!
NOTE: If you see the train come in to the Maeklong Station (the track ends here at the river), you can explore the railway market for an hour then you will get another chance to see the train turn around and run over the railway market again…
Explore the railway market, Maeklong
If I totally missed the train I think I would still like it here. Walking along the railway which was full of local products like fruit, vegetable, pork, fresh seafood and died seafood, was a lot of fun (See? No Tourist Souvenirs at all!!!)
The Tuna fish from here is the most famous tuna fish in Thailand.
The railway market is about 300 meters long, but it’s nice and cool under their shelters!
Check out the home-made carts which easily pulling back and forward during the train comes.
This is our first time and we feel great that we made this trip. It’s great trip out of town!
In this province, there is a lovely floating market “Amphawa” which is about 20 minutes away from this market.
Amphawa market starts at 1pm on Fri-Sat-Sun, and starts about 4pm on Mon-Thu. Great fresh seafood over there, you also can take the boat tour.
Or you can combine this trip (with some good time management) to Kanchanaburi or Ratchaburi (Damnean Saduak Floating market) or the crocodile farm in Samuthprakarn.
For more information just check out our website!!!
DATE Travelling: 7Th April 2013
