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Keeping control of the restive North has been a constant nation-building challenge for the southern Thai monarchs, which is a good part of the reason why this train line is here in the first place. Particularly a hundred years ago, a train line offered a way to project force into an area with unprecedented speed.

This place is a fine example of this: in the reign of Rama V – the man who first had this railway built – a group of jewel miners from the hills to the West rebelled against the crown, stormed the town of Phrae – about 20km up the valley to the North – and killed the local ruler. The king ordered one of his leading Generals to go rout out the bandits from the hills and make an example of them.

For this mission, the general set up his camp here: Den Chai. When his mission was completed, enough people stayed on to turned it into this town. The town’s strategic purpose was resurrected during the 1st World War, when a field army base was located in Den Chai, and even today the 12th Cavalry maintain the a base here, named after the General who quelled the initial rebellion: Phraya Chaiyabun.

Its perhaps for these strategic reasons that the line you’re travelling on takes such a circuitous route – it essentially heads North-South from here to Bangkok, and rougly East-West from here to Chiang Mai. There seems to have been more direct ways to lay the track, and perhaps, and which would have traversed less mountain ranges. But cutting across more of the north allowed more control of it.

Today there is also talk of extending the line from the town of Den Chai north along this valley and up to Chiang Rai.

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You’ve reached the end of the central Thai floodplains, and are about to start going up, into the Thai highlands.

The hills ahead of you are actually the foothills of the Himalayas. They link through Laos, Burma, and China, all the way to the top of the world – Mt. Everest.

The group of mountains is called the Phi Pan Nam Range. Its composed of many smaller mountain chains roughly aligned in a north-south direction in its northern part and, further south where we are, in a northeast-southwest direction.

The highlands are characterized by a pattern of generally steep hill ranges, intermontane basins and alluvial gorges. Although the highest elevations reach little above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft), the valley floors ranging between 200 and 500 metres above sea level, so it makes for dramatic landscapes. Over to the East, towards Laos, the divide to the Mekong basin, the peaks and valleys are even more extreme, with rivers sometimes cutting deep rocky gorges.

All this means that you are going to be going even slower! Which can be good or bad, entirely depending on your attitude, and perhaps who you’re sitting next to.

The Khao Phlung Tunnel

The part of the  of the railway proved to be the most difficult and expensive in the whole railway building program of Siam. The metals had to be lifted 600 feet in the course of the 27km journey from Uttaradit. The broken character of the mountainsides rendered the digging and earth-moving tasks technically complex and hard-going. And due to exceptionally high transport costs from Bangkok to here, earthworks was favoured, and tunnels and bridges were built only in exceptional circumstances.

This tunnel is one such exceptional scircumstance. It goes Its for 362.44m through pourous limestone, and it needed to be reinforced with concrete to stop water pouring into it. It runs 70m below the top of the Khao Phlung pass, where an wagon road was the only other way of getting goods to the towns on the other side of this range.

To give you an idea of the impact of this tunnel, the caravans that took goods over this high wagon road on the Khao Phlung Pass stopped running immediately after the opening of this tunnel with the first freight train on the 1st of June 1911. The price of transporting a tonne of goods over this range dropped between 90 and 99% when sent by train. A similar effect was felt as the line continued to be built through the next mountain ranges.

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Uttaradit literally means “Port of the North”. Its pretty much as far as you’re likely to get a boat, with the mountains beginning just north of here. As such, Uttaradit was a strategic commercial centre, inasmuch as caravans that engaged in the mountain traffic began their journeys from here after unloading goods from the river port. The railway link to Uttaradit was completed in April 1909, and it was an historic event to have the city a mere day’s train ride to Bangkok (rather than many days up a meandering river, or a bumpy road). Building for the railway stopped there for a couple of years before undertaking the technically far more complex task of piercing the Northern Highlands.

Its still a small city – about 30,000 people – but is an important regional centre for agriculture. Like a few towns in Thailand, its known for its fruits.

Uttaradit is particularly known for its Durian. For the uninitiated, the durian smells like a sweetened, fermented armpit, and tastes like that combined with raw onion. It thoroughly offends each of my 5 senses. But its an acquired taste, and I know plenty of sane people who have acquired the heck out of it. If you’ve never experienced it before, or could never follow through with it, the two new varieties of durian that Uttaradit is famous for are good to get you started – they apparently have a less offensive odour. The best time to try it is during the Durian festival held at the beginning of June in nearby Laplae District.

Uttaradit is also famous for its Langsat – a lesser known fruit that resembles a fig from the outside, and the inside fruit looks like a lychee. They taste kind of like a sweet grapefruit, and are reputedly delicious. They have a Langsat festival in Uttaradit in the middle to end of September.

If you see any Langsat being sold on the platform, do yourself a favour. Bringing durian on board is probably illegal, or is at least quite inconsiderate to your neighbours.

So, whats with the dinosaurs?

If you look carefully, you might suddenly see dinosaurs appear alongside the tracks as you’re coming into Uttaradit. From what we can gather, a mysterious dinosaur bone was found in Uttaradit that is believed to be of the Naga Dragon – a mythical beast that is believed to have existed in the region of Indochina, and stretching all the way to Nagaland in India.

Often described as the Thai equivalent to Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster, the tale of the Naga is widely celebrated in northeastern Thailand. Every November, thousands of Thais gather on the banks of the Mekong river in Nong Khai province to watch the Naga shoot mysterious “fireballs” into the sky. The event also brings annual heated debates over the source of the fireballs, which skeptics says are incendiary bullets fired from rifles on the other side of the river.

According to Supot Jermsawasdipong, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, the Naga “fossil” is likely an elephant molar.

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The Porramin Bridge, over the Nan river, is about 260m long, making it one of the longest railway bridges in Thailand (the longest is actually down in Bangkok across the Chao Phraya river).

Almost all bridges in Thailand are Truss bridges, and many are the original bridges built when the lines were laid in the early 20th century.

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Phichai is a tiny town, but its not to be messed with.

Are being founded in the 15th Century, it quickly turned into a rebellious city state. After its rebellion was crushed by King Naresuan, the King made everyone in the town move south to Phitsanulok where he could keep a closer eye on them.

Following the fall of the city of Ayutthaya to the Burmese in 1767, Phichai was also the site of several battles against the invaders. The ruler of Phichai at the time was a fierce warrior who faught with a sword in each hand. He and his army succeeded in driving back the Burmese and was awarded the title Phraya Phichai Dabhak – the “Lord of Pichai with a Broken Sword”, because during hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, he broke one of his swords.

Later on during the reign of Rama III, Phichai was the administrative centre for a bunch of city states, including Vientienne and Luang Prabang in Laos. However, the condition of the Nan river changed and the administrative function was moved upstream to Uttaradit. But there is still a shrine to Phraya Phichai Dabhak a short distance northwest of the station, and you might be able to make out that the lamp posts are adorned with a helmet and a broken sword.

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Phitsanulok has been a strategic cross-roads for early Thai Kings throughout its 600 year history. When the southern Kingdoms of Ayutthaya sought to expand their reach into these central and northern plains, and further up into the northern foothills, they came up against a people called the Lan Na.

They were no pushover. The Lan Na invaded their southern foes multiple times, and upon witnessing the seriousness of the war on his hands in the mid-15th century, King Borommatrailokkanat based himself here, effectively making Phitsanulok the capital of Thailand for around 25 years.

This brief stint as capital improved the patronage of Phitsanulok. King Borommatrailokkanat built Wat Ratchaburana, known for the unusual roof structure of the central Chedis, which is one of the only remaining structure.

Phitsanulok is also famous for being the birthplace of King Naresuan – a king revered for emancipating the Ayutthaya kingdom from the yoke of the Burmese Taungoo Kingdom. King Naresuan’s father, Sanphet the 1st, initially surrendered Phitsanulok to the invading Burmese, making Siam a Burmese tributary state, and taking the young King Naresuan hostage in the Burmese capital of Bago for his youth. But he found his way home, found an army, and found his way into the list of Thailand’s great kings.

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You’re now in the Nan River valley, and crossing into Phitsanulok Province. House-boats are found along this river. In fact, this is the only river and province in which houseboats are legal in Thailand, as they have been an important aspect of the region’s culture since early settlements.

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Phichit is an ancient town, but modern Phichit is largely an agricultural one without a lot of interest for visitors.

In October and April its pomello season in Phichit. If you see someone selling the pinkish, seedless variety of pomello, grab some – its Phichit’s specialty. They also use the peels of young pomelo into jam-like sweets, which are reportedly very popular.

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Given how much rice cultivation you’re likely to see when travelling through Thailand, we thought you’d best get an introduction to what you’ll see. There are generally three rice harvests per year in Thailand. So depending on when you’re travelling today, you should be able to see rice production at one of a few stages:

First, the muddy field is churned with a plough – usually with a hand-held tractor device but sometimes a buffalo drawn plough – to prepare for the ground for seeding.

Secondly, whole rice seeds, basically rice but with the outer husks still in place, is soaked for a couple of days before being spread over the ground, and the field is flooded with water from irrigation.

With a bit of time, this grows green seedlings, which are then bundled and ready to transplant – roots and all – across the field in bunches of three about a foot apart in a grid.

With a bit more time, the seedlings grow and the rice stalks emerge. By the time the paddy begins to turn brown, the rice is harvested by cutting mid-way up the stem.

The cut stalks are beaten against a hard surface to release the rice, which is then dried in the sun. The rice you eat is the endosperm of the seed that has been separated from the husk.

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Rice agriculture uses over half the arable land and more than half of all its workers – around 16 million people. Thats more people than who live in Bangkok. And these rice farmers make a formidable voting block.

But the onset of modern agribusiness practices had left many of Thailand’s smallest rice producers on the economic fringes of this booming industry. The government of Thailand’s efforts to rectify this has redefined Thai politics.

In 2011, Thailand was the biggest rice exporter in the world, and Yingluck Sinawatra was campaigning to become Prime Minister of Thailand. Whether driven by the alleviation of rural poverty, or something more nefarious, she promised Thai farmers to buy their rice at prices about 50% above global market rates. The rice farmers voted her into power.

Her scheme was to buy the unprocessed grains, store them in vast quantities and prevent them from reaching the international market, and thereby push up international rice prices to beyond even the 50% markup before selling it all off with a healthy profit. Genius, right!

Well, she was counting on India – the world’s biggest producer of rice – maintaining its ban on rice exports.

But of course, one week after she won the election and plundered the national accounts to buy oodles of Thai rice, India lifted its ban, sending rice prices for a monumental dive. Ouch! Worst of all, the 18 million tons of Thai rice that had been stockpiled began to deteriorate! And then criminal gangs reportedly colluded with corrupt officials to steal it.

Altogether, the failed scheme cost Thailand 19 billion USD, money that could have gone towards – for example – providing basic services to the rural poor. But instead, the government’s funds dried up, leaving farmers unpaid, and protests agains the new government got so bad that the Thai military kicked Yingluck out of government and fined her over 1 billion USD for her role in the scheme. The Thai people were fed-up. They endorsed the military’s move, leaving the new junta no rush to return the country to a state of democracy. So thats where we stand today.

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