To Market We Shall Go…

The floating market of Damnoen Saduak is supposedly one of the few left in Thailand. In an effort to avoid the main glut of tourists that come down by bus from Bangkok each morning, we decided to stay overnight and get an early start. We awoke at the crack of dawn and were picked up on the canal by a longtail boat. We toured through a few of the smaller canals, getting glimpses of the morning rituals of the people that live along the water before heading for the market. Most of the wares were geared towards the tourists (the locals now seem to get their shopping done at a land based market) but seeing the odd boat loaded down with produce and the merchants chatting and laughing with each other, it was easy to imagine what the market once was really like. Breakfast in Thailand is not limited to eggs or cereal, anything is eaten any time of the day, so it was noodle soup for me and fried baby bananas for Adam. It was a little unnerving to see a huge wok of bubbling oil suspended over an open flame, perched atop a bobbing longtail boat… but we had a chuckle when the bananas were handed over in a little bucket on a really long pole.

Marketed out we grabbed our bags and headed for what turned out to be an unnecessarily long journey to the island Ko Pa Ngan. We will spare you the details but in short it was several bus rides, interspersed with a lot of waiting (including one 3 hour wait under and overpass on a highway), an experience that bordered on abduction, a boat ride, and to finish it all off a 45 minute ride in the back of a pick up truck on a washed out dirt road. I think we are ready for some time on the beach, or at least in a bed!