Bangkok 2

Wednesday morning we were up before the larks to have our buffet breakfast before being picked up at 6.30am by the minibus for the nearly 2 hour trip to the Damnoen Saduak floating market and "Rose" Garden. A family from Christchurch were the only others with us on this whole day excursion which passed through industrial areas, scrap yards, wet lush ountryside with salt farms, coconut palms and rather poor houses. Our first stop was at a roadside coconut processing workshop which demonstrated how the entire palm tree is used commercially in some way. We sampled coconut sugar which is made from boiling the sap of the cut flower buds of the palm over open fires unlike palm sugar which is made from the sap of the tree itself. We had a little taste of some scrapings of the coconut flesh also and these were moist and delicious rather than dry like the coconuts at home.

Heading for the floating market in our "James Bond"boat

Further on down the road we all boarded one of several long-tail boats with an outboard motor for a very interesting ride of about 20 minutes down the narrow waterways to the well-known floating market. There were lots of patched up wooden houses on stilts fringing the canal, some in better order than others and most with shrines outside being a predominantly Buddhist country accounting for 90% of Thai people. Interestingly in Thailand they consider the year to be 2556, not 2013, as they use the Buddhist Calendar.

Traffic Jam!

We really enjoyed this boat trip along the peaceful canals but once we got to the floating market it was really busy with boats everywhere. At this point we were dropped off to wander around, first sampling some tiny coconut pancakes and then wandering along with the crowds looking at the colourful fruit and wares of the boat vendors and the stalls alongside. This is actually the part that I don't enjoy at all as the minute you slow your pace or stop to look at something the shop owners or assistant just can't stop hassling you with "what size, what size, what colour, what colour" and they just keep following you around the shop pestering which means that I just walk out to get away from them! From what I could see though sizes were a problem - very little children's clothing apart from for babies and what they had was a bit tacky. Adults things were basically one size fits all which often doesn't make for the best look! So our shopping was virtually nil as it was with the rest of the group. We bought a bunch of little bananas and a coconut with a straw to drink the "milk"- again delicious and sweet and much nicer than the milk I have tried previously. Len was dead keen to sample some food from the boat vendors but I managed to keep him away which was easier once he had seen all the flies settling on the dried fish in the sun and heat of the day. Chicken would have been even more of a risk.