The Maeklong market in Tailand is probably the most unusual market in the world because it resides along a railway. But it hasn’t always been this way. The market has long been an important hub for Maeklong (also known as Samut Sakhon) but when the railway was built in 1905 with a total of 18 stations and running straight through the market land, instead of moving the market to another location it continued and share the space with the tracks to this day.

The tracks themselves define the walkway through the market with stalls on either side offering a wide variety of food and clothing. The items are setup all the way up to the tracks on moveable and even rolling containers. Or if the items are low enough, they can stay and the train just passes right overtop. Personally I think I wouldn’t buy anything from those containers that stayed under the train!

But what about the stalls themselves? Each stall features a retractable awning so that when the train is own its way, each stall keeper pushes back the awning, pulls the food back and everyone steps out of the way of the tracks until the train passes. Then as soon as it’s clear, the awnings pop back out again and everything resumes as if nothing happened. The train runs every day of the week and passes by 8 times per day.

image via Chrissy Olson

While pictures of this market are indeed fascinating, nothing tells this story as well as video. Check out these videos below that walk through the market and show just how the whole dance works. These videos are taken from the angle of one of the stalls and shows the train passing through. Then, once the train has passed, shows the rolling trays of good and awnings pop back out…

The video below shows the interesting view from the back of the train as it passes through the market. The interesting thing is to see how quickly the awnings pop back out and market life resumes as normal…