22 Walks in Bangkok. Kenneth Barrett

crew who had transformed it into Agra Station remained visible for several years. The sidings and railway sheds became the haunt of railway anoraks, as there were some picturesque old steam and diesel locomotives in storage there. The market that had grown up next to the station was persuaded to move down the line to the replacement terminus, and the station building became a lonely and abandoned place. No one knew what was going to happen.

      But eventually, as is the way in Bangkok, there came a sudden change. Neighbouring Siriraj Hospital had bought up the land, and they have built a new wing and other facilities whilst retaining the old station building, which has become a museum for the hospital, the Siriraj Phimuksthan Museum. The station building is a little difficult to find now, being in the shadow of modern concrete and next to an underpass, but it still faces across the river and Klong Bangkok Noi, and one must be thankful that it has been spared demolition. Sentimentalists such as myself regret the disappearance of the railway land, and the fact that the station no longer looks like a station. But there is an attractive small park on the riverbank, and an old steam locomotive, a Mikado 2-8-2, bearing the number 950 and built by Mitsubishi in 1950, has been moved from the sidings and placed here. The engine had been a non-working one, partially cannibalised to supply parts for the operational steam locos that are still rolled out on special occasions. As for the replacement terminus, it remains in appearance a wayside station, and there is not enough space to store much in the way of railway memorabilia, beyond some decrepit rolling stock that rots away, unloved, amongst the weeds on the canal bank.

      Siriraj Hospital takes up a large area of land on the riverfront, and except for the small original building, dating from 1888, is mainly a collection of featureless concrete blocks. The hospital was founded by Rama V as Siam’s first modern hospital, and is now one of the country’s largest. As part of Mahidol University it is also an important training institute. Few realise, however, that inside this sprawling complex, which is rather like entering a small town, there are at least eight museums, all of them open to the public. Several date back to the early years of the last century, and have grown out of the hospital’s educational facilities.

      The Parasitology Museum predictably shows various kinds of parasites such as whipworms and roundworms, with models of their life cycles. The Ellis Pathological Museum shows the evolution of medicine in Thailand. At the Veekit Veeranuvati Museum is a display of ancient medical equipment and diagnostic methods, while the Ouy Ketusinh Museum is devoted to Thai traditional medicine, massage and herbal treatments. I especially enjoy the Congdon Anatomical Museum, founded in 1922 by Professor Edgar Davidson Congdon, who was sent to Bangkok by the Rockefeller Foundation to help the Siamese improve their medical skills. The two rooms haven’t changed since the 1920s, and have the dusty, cluttered look of an old laboratory: the skeletons of various Siriraj luminaries hang here, presumably donated to medical research rather than to act as a grim warning, as with the highwaymen of old. There are two unnamed corpses, a man and a woman, preserved in ethyl alcohol, and partially dissected to reveal the internal organs. There are Siamese twins preserved in jars. Embryos are to be found at every stage of growth. Someone has reconstructed the entire nervous system of the human body, and it hangs from a hook rather like a giant plant gone to seed. This museum is packed with exhibits, and there simply is not enough display room for everything; once I was startled to see a row of dusty skulls peering up at me from a shelf partly concealed behind a sliding panel. Reputedly the place is haunted, and I’m not surprised.