Ban Chiang, A Journey of a Museum in Remote Location

by Awadhesh Kumar (India)

A leap into the unknown Thailand

In foreign countries, I always travelled to places which were inside the town or city and too far from the city. In a country where you are new and not aware of the language, it's very difficult to communicate and reach there. Though in a modern world where you can use tools like google translate to communicate in almost every language. You should also be ready for the situation like low battery, No internet connection and lots of difficulties that can come in your way. So, finally, I decided to go to Ban Chiang Museum and I had a companion this time from the Philippines who was teaching in Thailand for more than seven years and was able to speak little Thai. Our journey was a long journey as we had a tight budget and I had to take my return flight to India in 2 days. It was 28th evening when we decided to go to Ban Chiang by Train from Rangsit Station. The ticket cost us 400 baht and it was quite shocking for me as I paid 45 baht from my trip to Aranyaprathet from Bangkok's Hua Lampong train station which was almost nine hours journey. Anyways, I took the tickets and we waited for the train which reached Rangsit almost 1.5 hours late. we saw a lot of luxury trains going to the same destination as ours: Udon Thani. We could have afforded the tickets to those train even on a tight budget but when we came up with a plan to go by train to see the countrysides, it was too late. All Seats were already booked. Finally, we boarded the train around 10:30 PM and were so sleepy that we somehow managed to find seats in Third Class and went into deep sleep unaware about the fact that the seats we were resting on were reserved seats. Though I noticed people looking at us when we were walking through the unreserved seat area to the reserved seat area. We were asked to move to the unreserved area around midnight by the ticket checker when the genuine traveller of those seats came. And after that, we were trying to sleep on the uncomfortable seats than the previous comfortable seats. I was not able to sleep well as I cannot sleep while sitting but she somehow managed to sleep. I was feeling sorry about that as I didn't expect the train to be full unlike the journey to Aranyprathet which was almost empty. Finally, we reached Udon Thani after crossing the countrysides and having a look at the long-expected high-speed train corridor. Ban Chiang Museum, Our ultimate destination was still far almost 55 kilometres away from Udon Thani. I searched about the distance of Bus terminal and Google map shoed that it is 3.4 kilometres away and the tuk-tuk driver asked for 50 baht and we agreed but for our surprise, it was only 900 meters away from Train Station. We reached the Bus Station and took the Bus to Ban Chiang. The place where the Bus dropped us was still 5 kilometres away from Ban Chiang Museum. We decided to walk as the weather was good. A tuk-tuk driver offered a ride but we refused to take the tuk-tuk in fear of getting overcharged. But after walking 2 kilometres, we were not able to walk and were surrounded by barking dogs. The place was quite deserted and we were not able to see any vehicle for lift. Finally, we saw a schoolboy coming from the other side and she, my companion asked him to drop us at Museum. He said he will come after dropping something at home. We thought about whether he will come or not? He came and dropped us at the Ban Chiang Museum and I gave whatever money was in my pocket. Of course, it was more than the fare that the tuk-tuk driver offered a ride to us before. The schoolboy was not willing to accept but we suggested him to buy notebooks from that money. And, this is how we reached the "Ban Chiang Museum".