Thai Water Market

On our second full day in Thailand, we headed out to a water market outside of Bangkok with a couple of my friends from Japan.  We had a van, driver, and tour guide to ourselves.  And of course we stopped at as many of the tourist trap places as the tour guide and driver could get us to.  That's one of the things that I dislike about some of the places I've traveled to, the insistence upon the part of various taxi drivers, tour guides, etc, to stop at every single place that can try and squeeze a baht or a penny out of you for things that usually aren't worth the money.  I realize they get kick backs and other forms of remuneration for bringing tourists in, and that they have to make a living, but I do not want to go shopping, thank you very much.

On our first tourist trap stop of the day, we stopped at this palm sugar place, and tasted palm sugar.  To the side, they had this huge orchid form/nursery area that was filled with beautiful orchids.  On the ground, I saw a little crab making its way from one side to the other, and unfortunately, for some reason, the picture came out all black.



After the palm sugar/orchid farm, we stopped at the wild animal/ride an elephant place.  We did see an elephant with a driver along the side of the road on our trip out of town.  But this place was depressing.  There was an elephant chained to a wooden structure so people could have their picture taken with the poor animal.  And there were the others chained up waiting for people to ride them.  There were other animals that were caged up so tourists could see them.  But we managed to talk the driver into leaving as quickly as possible.

Then we got to the water market itself, and took a boat ride.  Along both sides of the canal are vendors selling stuff of all kinds.  There are also vendors in boats that float along, too.  If you see something you like, the vendor will reach out with a hook and grab onto your boat and pull your boat to the edge or next to their boat.  The vendors are amazingly polyglot, switching from one language to another so quickly.  In our case, they would speak both English and Japanese in an attempt to get us to buy stuff, quoting prices in dollars and yen.


There were all sorts of dogs roaming about the area, too.

My favorite part of the water market:

When we first floated by, there was a giant snake hanging around on a platform below this sign.  When we floated by again, the snake was gone.

Outside of the market area is a more residential area.  There were obviously people living in these houses, which are all raised up above the water level.  There are walkways along the waterfront, and bridges over the canals connecting the houses.  Back away from the market area were some very nice houses.  I could certainly imagine staying there for a month or two, away from the hustle and bustle of the world, relaxing and listening to the sounds of the water.


Another dog.