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Hua Lumphong Station is, for the time being, the beginning or end of most great Thai rail journeys. We love it!

The Thai railway network was inaugurated here in 1897, and the building you see was erected in 1916. Like many significant Thai buildings with Royal patronage, the architecture is Italian, and of a neo-renaissance style – with a typically lofty and triumphant hall, and great natural light thanks to use of glass that was, at the times, considered state-of-the-art and adventurous.

A portrait of the founder of Thailand’s railway system greets you as you pass through to the train platforms. As an infant in 1855, King Chulalongkorn was presented with a model train set from an envoy of Queen Victoria who was trying to convince his father – King Mongkut – to link her colonies in British India and Malaya by rail. Mongkut declined to do as Victoria wished, but after assuming the throne 13 years later, Chulalongkorn began surveying a rail link in 1888 – not to Britain’s bordering colonies, but instead north to Siam’s second city of Chiangmai.

Hua Lumphong serves over 60,000 passengers daily. It is a terminus for every line in State Railway of Thailand network, taking you north to Chiangmai, Northeast to Laos, East to Cambodia, West toward Myanmar, and South to Malaysia. It is also, usually, the terminus of the Eastern and Oriental Express luxury train that connects all the way down to Singapore.

A not so pleasant story about this departures hall: At 8.55am on 8 November 1986, a newly repaired locamotive was heading here from Bang Sue station, towing 6 carriages, travelling at around 50km per hour. But there was nobody on it! The train careened into the barriers at the railhead and was flung upwards onto the elevated platform, skidding onto its side across the terminal floor. It grinded to a halt a few metres short of the station entrance. A book stall, information booth, soft drink stand, and foreign exchange counter were all smashed.

Fortunately, the station master had been notified of the coming disaster as the train began its 8km dash from the North, and was able to evacuate the area in the few minutes he had to respond. However, the airborne train knocked over two giant timetable boards which caused 4 fatalities.

SOME TIPS:

Buying tickets in advance: Trains can get sold out well in advance. If you’re still in the planning stages, we recommend using 12Go.asia and book early. They have a great website for train tickets, but can also connect buses, ferries, and flights if you need. You can pick up tickets in their office across the road from Hua Lumphong to the south when you exit through the main hall, but be sure to check their opening times. You’ll see a building labelled D.O.B – it also has a cafe with great juices! You can book your ticket with them in the little booking window below.

Public Transport Connections: The station is connected to Bangkok’s underground train – The MRT – which then connects to the the overground BTS Skytrain lines, and the Airport link to Suvarnabumi Airport.

Thonburi / Bangkok Noi departures: Some train journeys to the West and South depart instead from Thonburi Station, which is across the river to the West from here. If you are heading that way, be sure to check your tickets for the departure station listed. It can be tricky to get there, so if you need to get to Thonburi, leave plenty of time to either take a taxi, or inquire about how to get there by train.

Children: under 100cm and younger than 3 years travel free, provided they can share a seat with you if it comes to it.

Ladies: Some trains have special carriages for ladies and their accompanying children. Keep a look out for the pink signs on the side of carriages if you’re interested.

Dogs: You can bring dogs and cats on 3rd class carriages if they have a cage or case. They may charge between 90 and 150 baht per animal.

Old rolling stock: There are a few interesting pieces of old rolling stock around Hua Lumphong. Go exploring and you might find a 1935 Hitachi engine, another engine that has been converted into a mini shrine for railway workers, and a curious military carriage with cannons poking out of it.

Railway Museum: If you exit to the south of the main hall, you’ll find a small railway museum to the right (attached to the southwestern corner of the building). Not a bad place to visit if you have some time to burn, but keep expectations low).

Hungry?: There are some cheap and clean eats in and around the station, but you’re in a bit of a culinary dead-zone by Bangkok standards. There’s always the food court on the eastern flank of the main hall, which looks dodgey and has a strange coupon-based payment system, but has okay Thai fair.

Thirsty?: I don’t mind the coffee at Black Canyon upstairs inside the main station. If you have time, there are some hipster-styled cafes or bars if you head to Chinatown (to the west of the station, over the canal and into the alleys). I like 2W for a good coffee, and the oddly named “Teens of Thailand” for a fancy G&T at night.

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Welcome to Chiang Mai. If you’ve come from Bankgok, you’ve come 751 kilometres – as the crow flies, about the distance from Paris to Dublin, or from New York City to Columbus, Ohio, from Sydney to Brisbane, or from Tokyo to Kyoto and back. Chiang Mai province will be the 13th of Thailand’s 76 provinces that you’ve travelled through.

Chiang Mai means “New City”. It was the new city that King Mengrai, of the La Na, built anew in 1296 after he conquered the Mon kingdom of Hariphunchai based out of Lamphung a short distance to the south. Incidentally, the “old city” by his reckoning was Chiang Rai, the former capital of the La Na, about 150km to the Northeast of here.

But there was apparently a township here before King Mengrai. Wiang Nopburi belonged to the “Wa” people. They’re still around today – they can be found in the tiny, but fiercely independent and belligerent Wa State in Eastern Myanmar.

Chiang Mai station is about 2.5 km to the East of the old town, and a bit further to the trendier northern side of town. Unless you have a transfer organised, the only real taxi options are in the back of utility vehicles – usually red ones.

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Lamphun is a small town of around 14,000 people. But it was once called Hariphunchai, and was the capital of a kingdom of the same name.

The Hariphunchai kingdom was founded sometime between 600 and 800 AD by a person named Suthep. He was apparently a hermit, althought this seems to me to be an unlikely occupation for the founder of a great kingdom.

The Mon ruler of the Lavo Kingdom – which at the time controlled an area from the Chao Phyraya to the Vietnamese coast – sent his daughter, Jamadevi, to wed Suthep. They had twins, one of which later ruled Lamphun, and the other went over the Khun Tan range to rule Lampang.

It gets very confusing. And it helps to consider that, unlike the modern state of Thailand today that has a single monarch and a clear territory bordering other states, kingdoms back then were more like networks of city states – called Mandalas – all of which had un-defined and sometimes overlapping areas that it influenced and with people and resources it exacted tribute from. Sometimes, these mandala networks would band together under the most powerful ones, and go to war with another network. Sometimes they would split and go to war with within the network. But most of the time, because coordinating between the city states required sending people off for month-long walks, they kinda just stuck to themselves.

Eventually however, after somewhere between 400 and 600 years of existence, the network known as the La Na kingdom marched into the Hariphunchai city states of Lampang and Lumphun and killed the ruling family.

We know about Queen Jamedevi because a La Na buddhist monk wrote the cronicle of her life, and the rise of the Hariphunchai kingdom. The chronicle – called Camadevivamsa – was written on palm leaf in the Thai Tham script, and still survives today. It creates the foundation myth of the Mon people of the region, claims a legendary visit from the Buddha to the region, and ends with the discovery of a one of Buddha’s hairs in the 11th century, around which they built Wat Phra That Hariphunchai.

You can visit Wat Phra That Hariphunchai in Lamphun today. Its also featured on the back side of the One-Satang coin (which being only a 100th of a baht, is quite rare).

Lamphun is also famous for Longan fruit – similar to the Lychee. They hold a Longan festival on the Queens birthday – every 12 August.

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Historically, the Khun Tan range was a formidable natural barrier between the Lanna Kingdom and the Siamese in the central plain. So the Khun Tan tunnel (as well as the Khao Phleung tunnel near Uttaradit) was an important development for securing the northern reaches of Siam.

Its Thailand’s longest tunnel – at 1,362m. Khun Tan Station, on the north end of the tunnel, is also the country’s highest -sitting at 758m.

Digging for the tunnel commenced in 1907. It took eleven years to complete. It probably shouldn’t have, but the digging was disrupted when the engineers were arrested. They were Germans, you see, and Thailand reluctantly declared war on the Axis Powers in July 1917, not long before the tunnel was set to be completed. It got completed by a Thai engineer in 1918.

Originally the tunnel was meant for a standard guage train, but it was later switched to a metre-guage, leaving extra space inside the tunnel.

Incidentally, can someone tell me what weird creatures are decorating the north side of the tunnel? I went past it at night and couldn’t quite make it out. I read somewhere that the ashes of the architect of the tunnel – Emil Eisenhofer – are located in a small shrine somewhere in or on the tunnel.

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The Khun Tan mountain range is pretty special.

In 1975, it was designated as a national park, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has declared it a “category 5 protected area”: meaning that its well-endowed with habitats, flora, fauna, and scenic features, as well as a rich in enduring human cultures that are in balance with nature.

You probably won’t see evidence of it, but there are Hill tribe communities living in the Khun Tan Range – the Yao and the Akha who have villages in the mountain sides of the northern areas of the range – on the other side of the tunnel.

The Akha are a semi-nomadic people who claim to have descended from close to Tibet. They have a distinct language of Tibeto-Burman origins. Their religion – Zahv – is a combination of animism and ancestor worship that emphasises their connection to the land and their place in natural cycles of the world. Yet, they traditionally use slash and burn agriculture, which has been forbidden by the Thai authorities due to its terrible environmental consequences. They celebrate Women’s New Year in August, where all the women wear traditional clothes that they have been working on all year, particularly having elaborate headwear that indicates the woman’s age and readiness for marriage. Many Akha in these hills have been driven here from the seperatist fighting in Myanmar.

The Yao people descend from hill tribes in China and Laos. They are part of a group of tribes that generally speak Hmong languages, and are mostly found in Northern Vietnam and Southwestern China. They are generally Taoist, with arguably strong influence of Buddhism. Like many other Hmong tribes, many of the Yao in Thailand fled Vietnam and Laos during wars in the 20th century after they fought on the losing side.

Its possible to visit these people, and you might be able to find someone who offers organised tours at Khun Tan Station, located at the northern end of the tunnel. Which is where you will find the station for the Doi Khun Tan national park.

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Lampang is the first old Lanna city that you stop in if you’re coming up from the South. It was founded in the 7th century as a city in the Mon Kingdom centred around Lamphung near Chiangmai. But its Mon ruler, Yi Ba, was defeated by the First Lanna King – Mangrai – and was made to flee to Lampang while Mangrai set up a new capital city in Chiang Mai in 1296. Yi Ba’s exiled capital didn’t last long before Mangrai chased him further south to Phitsanulok and claimed Lampang as part of the Lanna Kingdom.

As Mangrai pushed up against the growing power of Ayutthaya, a 33 year war raged in the 13th century which ended in stalemate.

The Lanna Kingdom eventually fell to the Burmese when they invaded and held the area from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The Burmese withdrew after being defeated by the Siamese under King Taksin the Great of the Thonburi kindgom in 1775, who went on to also take modern day Laos an Cambodia.

The Lanna were different. They were more part of the Indian cultural tradition than the Mon or its southern Thai neighbours. They spoke a language which was somewhere between Thai and Laotian, and with a written script that looks more like Burmese. It has morphed into Northern Thai language today, with about 6 million native speakers. They also had their own architectural, culinary, and generally artistic nuances.

As far as Thai railway stations go, this one is a beauty. It may not look like much from the platforms, but its an architectural gem.

It was built around 1915 before the first Royal Train arrived at Lampang Station on April fools day in 1916. It shows a mix of artistic and architectural styles, particularly combining the Northern Thai styles with the European styles popular with the Royal Family of the time.

It was constructed by Karl Doring – a German architect who was sufficiently captivated by Indo-Chinese arts and monuments as to accept a position with the Royal State Railways of Thailand to build stations, but eventually went on to build palaces for the Thai Royal family too.

Its second floor, which houses the Lampang District Traffic Department, has a high red roof with extended eaves shading a fetching balcony with an intricate balcony fence. Door frames and windows are also intricately patterned. The entrances of the lower floor are solid curved arches. For good measure, they’ve parked an old steam engine in front of it.

Perhaps I’m getting too excited by it. But I just think that there’s an inordinate amount of love that has gone into preserving this building for a small town in Middle-of-nowhere, Thailand. It even received an Architectural Conservation Award in 1993. Its not uncommon for the State Railways of Thailand to care so thoroughly for their heritage buildings in even minor stations. But for this one, I can really imagine King Rama V arriving triumpantly at the station on a machine the likes of which no-one had seen before, and waving to his people from that sturdy balcony.

Incidentally, the river that runs through Lampang is the Wang River, which is a major tributary of the Ping river, which in turns empties into the Chao Phaya.

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There’s a volcano up here alongside the Northern Line. Granted its a rather little one. But it’s caldera is clearly noticeable from satellite imagery.

Its one of only two volcanos in Thailand, and the other is down near the Cambodian border, and has a temple built on the caldera to honour the god of destruction.

Yet, I can barely find anything about this volcano apart from its ridiculously long name, and its height 399 metres. But don’t worry – it hasn’t erupted for almost a million years, and there’s about 25km of intra-plate continental crust between you and all the magma.

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From relatively verdent and natural surrounds, the Mae Chang River valley, with no major towns nearby, is surprisingly industrious, and a bit of a pity to be honest.

Firstly, it has a 2,400 MW lignite-fuelled power plant – the largest in Southeast Asia – stemming off the adjacent lignite mine. Lignite is dirty stuff to burn – half way between bituminous coal and peat. Residents have successully sued the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand for the health effects it has caused, but we will all suffer from the millions of tonnes of CO2 it releases each year.

Then there’s 4 man-made reservoirs created from daming the rivers. There’s one big one – the Mae Chang reservoir – a bit off to the north, which actually flooded a perfectly good village including an ancient temple. This reservoir actually dried up recently due to a severe drought, and you could once again walk around the town’s ruins in a dried and cracked up lake bed.

To add insult to injury, they managed to squeeze in a positively massive cement factory attached to the nearby limestone mines.

Thailand needs electricity, and cement, this place is a bit of an eyesore.

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When coming down these hills in such a heavy locomotive, you really want to have good breaks.

At 10:30pm on 23 May 1989, the no. 38 (Chiang Mai-Bangkok) collided into the face of a mountain and derailed… right around here. All 8 carriages fell into the valley below.

The accident caused 8 deaths, 32 serious injuries and 107 minor injuries.

Of course, it was due to a braking system failure. The trains breaks had been fixed a little way up the line at Nakhon Lampang station, but they failed again near Mae Mo station, 7km uphill from here. At the site of the accident, it was reported the speed was at 75 km/h when the speed limit was 45 km/h.

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The Yom river is the largest tributary of the Nan river, and meets it a long way downstream in the central floodplains.

For the last 20 years a debate has been raging about whether to dam this river. The government is proposing it to create electricity, irrigation waters, and to help with flood control.

However, not far east of here, a dam was built on the Nan river just as it exited Lam Nam Nan National Park. The Sirikit Dam innundated 100 square miles of the national park.

The site chosen is 65km north and upstream of here, just where the river emerges out of the Mae Yom National Park.

Protests from local villagers suggest that they are vehemently against it. They claim that the dam only serves personal interests of business people – to harvest valuable teak forrests that would be innundated, to make real estate deals around the new water front, and to win the lucrative construction and servicing contracts.

Its also a pretty river, so I hope nothing bad happens to it.

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