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Published: April 9th 2013
Hi all,
Well again I am well behind in my blogs, but suppose that means we are doing the right thing by relaxing...
Below are lots of photos taken from when Mia and I spent the day (Sunday 24th March) with Bangkok Food Tours and their 'offbeat floating market' tour. A great and long day out visiting the famous train market and 3 floating markets.
The train market is set up along the railway and 8 times a day a train passes through. Each time it does the vendors have to pull aside the food and pull down their shade screens so that the train can pass. As soon as it has passed each stall, the vendor pops the shade screen back up and the produce is slid back into place. It's quite funny to watch! As the photos don't really show too much, if you haven't seen it before, check it out on YouTube. There are heaps of videos of it uploaded, but below is a good one:
http://migrationology.com/2011/05/maeklong-train-market-thailand/
We then went to Tha Ka floating market which is a very small local market with no other tourists in sight. The market is in a
coconut plantation as the local industry is making coconut sugar (Devine - similar to palm sugar but not as sweet. The locals travel in boats in the canal system set up amongst the coconut palms. We hopped in a longtail boat and cruised around - a nice cool way to get out of the hot (40c) heat. We stopped at a family business where they make coconut sugar. Fascinating to watch and it makes you realise just how lucky we are. The nectar of the coconut flower is tapped for its sap and then boiled down over 3 different levels of heat until ready. The lady we met had the job of continually stoking the fire. (can you imagine how uncomfortable this would be in the Thai heat?). I am guessing she would have been around 60 years old and had been doing this since she was 12... We were lucky enough to taste the fresh sugar straight from the pot and it was yum! Tasted like caramel fudge! Mia wanted to buy a small pot to take home however I knew it would be eaten in a matter of days so said 'no!'.
Afterwards we went back to
the market and had a divine lunch of different local foods. We had:
'Kanom Buen' - Thai style crepe made from rice flour, turmeric, egg and water and filled with coconut, shallots, coriander, dried shrimp, bean sprouts, tofu, pickled radish and peanuts. Very nice - similar to pad Thai however without the noodles.
'Hoi Tod' - Thai style fried mussels with egg, tapioca flour, bean sprouts, chilli, garlic, onions and seasoning. I loved this! I had a similar dish when I was in Singapore for work many years ago however that time it was made with oysters. The flour makes it a very slimy dish and there is no fishy taste to it. YUM. Mia didn't want to try it and that was fine as I didn't think she'd enjoy the texture.
'Tung Tong' - golden money bags. Tofu sheets filled with chicken, shiitake mushroom, carrots, sweet corn and black and white sesame then deep fried. Not my favorite but ok.
I also stumbled upon a snack called 'Koaw Griep Pag Mor' which are little parcels made from minced pork and herbs wrapped in Steamed rice flour. You take a parcel, wrap it in lettuce with
Train Market
Fresh tamarind. Similar to what we can get at home, but not in a packet and has the stems attached.a piece of coriander and HOT chilli and top with a little bit of the sweet and tangy sauce. They are magical and one of my favorite finds of the trip so far. I also now recognise them in the streets of Bangkok so can buy them whenever I please! As we were leaving we stumbled ustall other stall making these. Olive asked whether we could step in and have a go at making them which we did...very funny as it was a difficult procedure to get the right technique! We have Mia and I on video attempting to make them. I must say Mia did much better than me!
Next we went to another local market called 'Bang Noi'. Again, no foreigners in sight, just Thai locals enjoying their Sunday out. A very pretty and serene market set up over a river. We all had the pleasure of a 15 minute head massage which was lovely! We were then served a dish of fried rice with mackerel along with a shrimpy sauce. It didn't look very appertising but was delicious. We also tasted 'spring bitter cucumber juice' which was not bitter and very refreshing!
Our
Train Market
Burn baby, burn! last market of the day was 'Amphawa' which is renowned by Thai foodies. It was packed with locals being a Sunday but that only added to the ambience. Along the way we tasted gorgeous bbq'd scallops with 'cheese'. The cheese is really butter with herbs and again was delicious (what isn't in thailand?). I asked our tour guide 'Olive' whether they had 'Miang Kum' in the markets which is one of my all time favorite Thai snacks. It translates into 'one small bite' and consists of a piece each of raw ginger, dried shrimp, shallot, hot chilli, peanut, lime with peel and shredded coconut that you wrap in a betel leaf with a dollop of sweet and sour sauce (sugar, tamarind and shrimp). You wrap it up and pop it all in at once and chew away. It's an explosion of flavours in your mouth! Luckily Olive directed us to a small hidden stall that served it so I was very happy! I also later found a stall that sold it as takeaway so of course, I bought a pack to take back to the hotel! After walking around by ourselves for a while, eating, eating, eating, we were served
Train Market
Fresh mackerel - how cute! You can even buy fridge magnets that look like this! lunch! We had gigantic river prawns (about 15cm long), fresh bbq'd fish and scallops with 'killer sauce' (Nam Jim)' fried red curry fish cakes (like the ones we get in Aus) and steamed red curry fish cake 'Hor Mok'. The Hor Mok was different to what I know, this one being the fish cake mix in a banana leaf and steamed, whereas the Hor Mok I know is a mixture of seafood in a red curry 'custard' steamed in banana leaves. The version we had wasn't the best but the other food made up for it! We also had a purple drink made from Asian pigeon wings flower water, lime and lemongrass juice... No birds involved! On the way out of the market, over heated and over fed, Olive kept buying snacks and throwing them our way. Deep fried quail eggs with soy (mmm), coconut custard... Overall, we had a fantastic day. I'm sure we all put on a kilo or two however we probably sweated it out as it was so hot! It has been around 40 degrees every day!
For any foodies coming to Bangkok, I highly recommend doing this tour. Olive was fantastic and we got
Tha Ka Floating Market
On the canals around the market to see parts of outer Bangkok that we wouldn't normally see. The floating markets we went to were not the ones you see in all the travel brochures...no foreigners around (except for us!) and a real highlight into the local Thai scene as well as where the Thais go for weekends of food and fun!
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