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Published: August 20th 2005
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The floating market is a famous, lovely, exciting place, that is unfortunately losing a lot of its authenticity due to the number of backpackers and other visitors passing through. The vegies, seeds and fruit go, and the place slowly fills up with dodgy little souvenirs instead. By about 9 o'clock, when the tour buses start to arrive from Bangkok, it apparently changes quite dramatically. So, like all the guidebooks say, if you can, stay overnight in the area, and go at about 6/7am.
I didn't have the luxury, not having much time in Bangkok, and Thailand altogether, and having already booked accommodation... so I went by tour bus and still loved the change of pace and atmosphere in the "Venice of Asia".
When you go to the floating market from Bangkok, its about an hour, hour and a half trip by bus. Then, the fun starts on the longboats that you catch from the bus depot place to the market itself. And that is some crazy stuff. They are really fast and you get wet over the side -- watch your cameras. I don't know about everyone else, but I loved it. It didn't smell too bad, or look
too bad .... It was great.
You get to see the life alongside the canal. It's incredible - they wash clothes, bathe, feed animals, wash kitchen dishes (!) and lots more, in the really gross water. They have their little jettys and bridges between each other,... there's an elephant show in there somewhere, and a snake show as well.
When we were travelling along, and passed a small temple, a kid and his father let off some fireworks right as we went passed. Scared most of the people on board half to death. I think most of them thought we were hit and about to sink.
It was all really fun. Jim, you would have hated it, thats how good I thought it was.
The old lady beside me was a Korean woman that adopted me. The honestly, wanted to keep me. I was there with the korean lady, her daughter, and her daughters daughter. The youngest and I, having travelled a bit, hit it off early....she has been living in Australia, and I have been to her city, Pusan. I practiced my little Korean.
(I seem to use a different language every day here
... I'm running out. In the last 3 weeks I've spoken a lot of Chinese, a little Malay, a little Thai, a lot of Japanese and German, and now Korean. Of course, you know I'm having a ball, and have bought a book on Thai characters now to learn. I'm such a freak.)
And there's still more. Once you get to the floating market, you can, of course, just walk along the sides and buy from boats that come past you. Its fun to, at least once, flag down a boat to buy something from, like you would flag down a taxi. So I did it once.
Then, to get the most out of it, you'd have to experience the 'shopping boats'. These are smaller, slower paddle boats, that you get on to go amongst the sellers' boats, and some permanent little stalls along the sides of the waterways also.
One of the scariest things... you know in those old movies, where they joke and pull off the guy on stage by those long hooked poles? Do you know what I mean? Well, the sellers with permanet stalls along the sides have these long hooks that they
reach out with to grab the passing boats. I was in the front seat, and they kept coming right towards me all of a sudden and pull us over. It was great of course!
And the sellers on boats just grab the edge as you go by. They are pushy, but not like on the regular streets here. They just yell at you, tell what they have, point out what they think you might want...and release you if noone wants anything. About 8 (?) people fit on these boats, so often there is someone that might want something. Especially when mango and other nice fruit comes floating by. The mango here is superb (so long as its fresh! they have this sweetened mango in packets, like at 7 11, that I thought I'd try, and its disgusting!).
I mostly just wanted the experience of it all, so I only bought a couple of things - dolls that I would have bought anyway somewhere else before I left (I collect them), so it was more interesting to do it here. Plus a little minature seller statue in her longboat with fruit and vegies, ...just something floating-markety.
My lovely
Korean grandma bought a hat, but the other two didn't get anything else at all. It's a hat that you create from a bent fan. Does that make any sense? If you open it half way, its a bent fan, and if you open it 360 degrees and clip it together, its a hat. Quite ingenious really. A hat for in the sun, and fan for in the shade - where it is still hot.
We had a lovely morning at the markets, and I'm thankful for spending time with the lovely Koreans. My Korean Grandma was most upset to see me go, and wanted me to come with them where they were going, and back to stay with them until I left Bangkok. They probably would have done anything for me, but I didn't go. I'd love to see them again soon though. In Korea or in Australia, we'll see what happens. I have some lovely photos in the meantime, on this site, some others, and I also have a plate of me and Grandma sitting together on one of the longboats, and they have one too.
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