Floating market

It was the 3rd day in a row I dragged myself up from the bed covers at 6am in the early morning. We need to depart early from Bangkok as it takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to reach the floating market before they close shop or the sun is too unbearably hot.

The journey was longer than what we expected though. Partly because we do not know the way and the road signs were lousy. However, when we know we reach the place, the excitement started building up again. It was a differently refreshing experience. We parked the car, got on the boat which looked like this.



The sun was, yes, hot, but not TOO hot yet. The boat was slowly gliding in the canal as the guide swiftly manuevered the boat around when the blardy boats equipped with engines go swooshing by, sending waves in the canal which made us hold on tightly for dear lives sake. "@#$%^&!!" Lucky there were no untoward accidents in this outing trip.



I thought that was all to the famous "floating market" there is... watching the scenic views of locals living near the sea while enjoying the soft salty air blowing on our cheeks.

That is, until we turned into this "main road", oops, should be "main canal", where all the action and happenings were.

Boats of tourists, sellers of all kinds of stuffs, bargains and negotiations, all these atop the water surface. We have to be very careful not to hold the sides of our boats though, as we could easily be injured with the passerby boats which come knocking much too closely.

The sellers' eyes are very sharp. They see you eyeing their products, they would come right after you. We find that the souvenirs were quoted much too highly, obviously trying to impress the tourists, but the food price was ok. We had coconuts for THB10 each and drank to our hearts' delight, quenching our thirst and cooling the heat almost instantly.

The mangoes looked darn juicy. We bought some finally even though it wasn't very cheap.

There was this lady frying some "fried egg with oysters" on her boat. We made the order shouting from across the "road", "Oi, tau rai, tau rai? (meaning, how much?) and use the index finger suggesting we want 1 plate, paid her and enjoyed the deliciously succulent fried egg oysters while continuing on our way.

The sideway canals were not as busy as the main one. There were mostly souvenir stalls lining up the side of the canal, sitting on solid land. Some of them were rather rude, they would just use a long rod to pull your boat over to them and "forced" you to look at their items. Anyway, they can't force us to part with our money to buy things from them though.

It was a good 1 hour experience on the floating market. Something different from the usual shopping experience worth going for.

My brother had written his views on the same trip on his blog