Thailand and the Floating Market
While we didn't have more than a day and a half in Thailand, we decided to make it our starting point. The decision was mostly based on the cheap airfare, but the bussling streets of Bangkok really are a nice place to come back to (although I am sure the beaches would be even more welcoming on a second trip!).
We arrived in Thailand in the evening and took a two hour cab ride to Damnoen Saduak, the town famous for the large "floating markets" about 2 hours outside of Bangkok. It was well past midnight when we arrived, so there wasn’t much to do besides check into a hotel the first night after the taxi dropped us off. Our first lesson of the trip also came when we tried to get the taxi and realized the standard fares (or at least the rates they tell you to aim to bargain for) were way off. This is probably an indication of inflation, a rise in tourism and basically a lag between publication and distribution, but we just had to suck it up and pick a new "rule of half" to live by (basically taking the given price, cutting it in half, and bargaining to a happy medium from there).
The second day was an early one. We were up before the sun, walking along the river (not near/on the market, but down a sleepy canal from the main area), exploring the local food stands in dusty parking lots as vendors set up shop, trying some mighty spicey breakfast delights and getting our bearings in this delightful, yet foreign, little water town. It’s only been a year since I was last in Thailand, but seeing the palm trees and fauna light up with the sunrise sent shivers of glee down my spine. We saw an old man wading through a swamp, literally tilling the cover of lillies and paddies down one side-street and spent the rest of our time trying to manuever our way around the various wild dogs running around the street and crazy traffic (teaching us that breaking should not be taken for granted!). I couldn’t have been happier.
At 6:30am, we headed back to the hotel to meet our boat driver (had arranged a tour of the market the night before) who led us to the riverfront and helped us into our wooden, Toyota-engine-powered, banana-shaped boat for a private tour along the back canals. The canals were like streets and even formed blocks of houses– think the canals of Venice with a tropical background. I think our driver took us near the area he lived in because he seemed to know a lot of people, who also smiled and waived. There wasn’t another tourist around and the people were so nice! While it is possible to walk along the main canals to the big markets on wooden planks outside houses and makeshift shops, there were no walking paths (other than grass and dirt) where the driver led us, making it seem all the more exotic. In addition to bright-colored flowers lining houses and small gold-laden temples (or shrines?), we also saw several large monkeys and even a water monitor (basically a big lizzard).
After about 30 minutes, we arrived at several shops, stands set up along the banks, putting out their wares and calling for us to buy something "at a good price!" We kindly informed them we weren't there to shop, just look, and continued on to the main market, which was marked by food boats, but still empty of tourists. Granted, this is pretty trampled tourist ground and the market would soon be packed with other westerners streaming (or paddling?) in on a day trip from Bangkok (9am is the magic time, folks!), it seemed very magical and adventurous at the time. Like the few places we had seen before, the big marketplace is called a market because there are stalls on either side of the canals selling tourist goods while other banana boats make their way down the middle of the lane, with food fare on board (everything from fuit to drinks to soup!). We still weren’t there to shop as much as look (yes, I did just say that), however, so we just enjoyed the serenity, scenery and experience.
After going down the main market area, our tour ended and we were dropped off. Tam and I decided to walk down to look at the markets from the side (or above, I guess). When we arrived at the area, after walking those wooden planks for about 10 minutes (and getting attacked by red ants on the way!), I realized the marketactually did sprawl out further than just the river banks onto dry-land and resembled your typical, open-air, Asian markets by foot...just with a more tropical setting than the rumbling cities. After taking poking around, taking a gazzilion and one pictures and getting our fill of the fruit shakes and Thai cuisine for the morning (I must have had three entrees – it was ridiculous, but too hard to resist!), we headed back to the hotel to rest for a while before taking a boat to Bangkok. The busride took about 2 hours, was pretty comfortable and cost us a whopping 63 baht (two dollars).
Our time in Bangkok was limited, so we spent most of it looking around the Palace area and Koh San Road (the foreign grotto of Banglamphu). We did a little shopping (looking for bridesmaids gifts for my best friends weddings and this is a good place for silver), taste-tested some more delicious thai food (including a cockroach and a cricket!!!...had to use beer as a chaser...) and got one-hour Thai Massages (where they twist and turn you with their entire bodies as tools, relieving any aches by force!) before going to the train station to catch our train.
Alright, I am not going to go as far as to say I am control freak, but I do like to be informed when I travel. That being said, figuring stuff out when you get to your destination is part of the fun and experience, but is not always realistic when you are short on time. When my buddy first introduced the idea of checking out Laos for the weekend on our way to Cambodia (we live in the same area of Japan but decided to participate in the same NGO independantly), I was all for it. I took a back seat and let her make all the plans because she's always really on top of it, but the one thing I really should have been better about was warning her about the trains in Thailand. The Thai are very proud of the fact that they were never a colony, but that also means that they never benefited from the transportation structures introduced by the industrialized colonies that controlled the other SE Asian countries. It's often faster to take a bus than the train in Thailand (and cheaper!) and flights aren't too bad, either. All that being said, when I heard about the plan to take an overnight train from Bangkok to Laos (about a 11 hour trip vs. a one hour flight), I thought,"sure, why not?" We had first-class seats for a fraction of the price of other forms of transportation (so basically our own room, but more of the Chinese soft-sleeper variant of first-class than the Orient express....), so it seemed like just a moving hotel.
We got on th train, waited for it to leave and fell asleep. Woke up a few hours later and the train hadn't left. Hmm. Alright. Asked another passenger and the delay time was going to be a few hours. Well, it turned out that the train before ours had been hit by a truck, derailed and the delay turned into more than TEN hours (making that one hour flight look pretty nice compared to our 23 HOUR ride!). When I awoke for the new day around 5:30 am, we were just pulling out of Bangkok. We did get to look at the landscapes, did a lot of reading and napping and met some quirky, but fun, travelers in the food car, but what a long day! It cost us a day in Laos and mad us reshuffle our plans a bit... but having arrived, I'm still just happy to be here.
Once we arrived at the boarder, we took a tuk-tuk to immigration with some Norwegian boys and a French-Canadian (the immigration office was closed, but the boarder was still selling short-term tourist visas until 9:30...whew!), walked across the boarder, took a truck with some other people across the "Friendship Bridge" and were dropped off in the middle of the capital. And we were in LAOS!
So that's it for Thailand (a rather long account for 2 days, no?). There's so much more to tell about the smells, dust, atmosphere, energy and music (sensory overload...it's a rush!)... but I'll hopefully be able to include them in comparisons with our upcoming travels in Cambodia and Laos. More soon and here's to safe travels!
We arrived in Thailand in the evening and took a two hour cab ride to Damnoen Saduak, the town famous for the large "floating markets" about 2 hours outside of Bangkok. It was well past midnight when we arrived, so there wasn’t much to do besides check into a hotel the first night after the taxi dropped us off. Our first lesson of the trip also came when we tried to get the taxi and realized the standard fares (or at least the rates they tell you to aim to bargain for) were way off. This is probably an indication of inflation, a rise in tourism and basically a lag between publication and distribution, but we just had to suck it up and pick a new "rule of half" to live by (basically taking the given price, cutting it in half, and bargaining to a happy medium from there).
The second day was an early one. We were up before the sun, walking along the river (not near/on the market, but down a sleepy canal from the main area), exploring the local food stands in dusty parking lots as vendors set up shop, trying some mighty spicey breakfast delights and getting our bearings in this delightful, yet foreign, little water town. It’s only been a year since I was last in Thailand, but seeing the palm trees and fauna light up with the sunrise sent shivers of glee down my spine. We saw an old man wading through a swamp, literally tilling the cover of lillies and paddies down one side-street and spent the rest of our time trying to manuever our way around the various wild dogs running around the street and crazy traffic (teaching us that breaking should not be taken for granted!). I couldn’t have been happier.
At 6:30am, we headed back to the hotel to meet our boat driver (had arranged a tour of the market the night before) who led us to the riverfront and helped us into our wooden, Toyota-engine-powered, banana-shaped boat for a private tour along the back canals. The canals were like streets and even formed blocks of houses– think the canals of Venice with a tropical background. I think our driver took us near the area he lived in because he seemed to know a lot of people, who also smiled and waived. There wasn’t another tourist around and the people were so nice! While it is possible to walk along the main canals to the big markets on wooden planks outside houses and makeshift shops, there were no walking paths (other than grass and dirt) where the driver led us, making it seem all the more exotic. In addition to bright-colored flowers lining houses and small gold-laden temples (or shrines?), we also saw several large monkeys and even a water monitor (basically a big lizzard).
After about 30 minutes, we arrived at several shops, stands set up along the banks, putting out their wares and calling for us to buy something "at a good price!" We kindly informed them we weren't there to shop, just look, and continued on to the main market, which was marked by food boats, but still empty of tourists. Granted, this is pretty trampled tourist ground and the market would soon be packed with other westerners streaming (or paddling?) in on a day trip from Bangkok (9am is the magic time, folks!), it seemed very magical and adventurous at the time. Like the few places we had seen before, the big marketplace is called a market because there are stalls on either side of the canals selling tourist goods while other banana boats make their way down the middle of the lane, with food fare on board (everything from fuit to drinks to soup!). We still weren’t there to shop as much as look (yes, I did just say that), however, so we just enjoyed the serenity, scenery and experience.
After going down the main market area, our tour ended and we were dropped off. Tam and I decided to walk down to look at the markets from the side (or above, I guess). When we arrived at the area, after walking those wooden planks for about 10 minutes (and getting attacked by red ants on the way!), I realized the marketactually did sprawl out further than just the river banks onto dry-land and resembled your typical, open-air, Asian markets by foot...just with a more tropical setting than the rumbling cities. After taking poking around, taking a gazzilion and one pictures and getting our fill of the fruit shakes and Thai cuisine for the morning (I must have had three entrees – it was ridiculous, but too hard to resist!), we headed back to the hotel to rest for a while before taking a boat to Bangkok. The busride took about 2 hours, was pretty comfortable and cost us a whopping 63 baht (two dollars).
Our time in Bangkok was limited, so we spent most of it looking around the Palace area and Koh San Road (the foreign grotto of Banglamphu). We did a little shopping (looking for bridesmaids gifts for my best friends weddings and this is a good place for silver), taste-tested some more delicious thai food (including a cockroach and a cricket!!!...had to use beer as a chaser...) and got one-hour Thai Massages (where they twist and turn you with their entire bodies as tools, relieving any aches by force!) before going to the train station to catch our train.
Alright, I am not going to go as far as to say I am control freak, but I do like to be informed when I travel. That being said, figuring stuff out when you get to your destination is part of the fun and experience, but is not always realistic when you are short on time. When my buddy first introduced the idea of checking out Laos for the weekend on our way to Cambodia (we live in the same area of Japan but decided to participate in the same NGO independantly), I was all for it. I took a back seat and let her make all the plans because she's always really on top of it, but the one thing I really should have been better about was warning her about the trains in Thailand. The Thai are very proud of the fact that they were never a colony, but that also means that they never benefited from the transportation structures introduced by the industrialized colonies that controlled the other SE Asian countries. It's often faster to take a bus than the train in Thailand (and cheaper!) and flights aren't too bad, either. All that being said, when I heard about the plan to take an overnight train from Bangkok to Laos (about a 11 hour trip vs. a one hour flight), I thought,"sure, why not?" We had first-class seats for a fraction of the price of other forms of transportation (so basically our own room, but more of the Chinese soft-sleeper variant of first-class than the Orient express....), so it seemed like just a moving hotel.
We got on th train, waited for it to leave and fell asleep. Woke up a few hours later and the train hadn't left. Hmm. Alright. Asked another passenger and the delay time was going to be a few hours. Well, it turned out that the train before ours had been hit by a truck, derailed and the delay turned into more than TEN hours (making that one hour flight look pretty nice compared to our 23 HOUR ride!). When I awoke for the new day around 5:30 am, we were just pulling out of Bangkok. We did get to look at the landscapes, did a lot of reading and napping and met some quirky, but fun, travelers in the food car, but what a long day! It cost us a day in Laos and mad us reshuffle our plans a bit... but having arrived, I'm still just happy to be here.
Once we arrived at the boarder, we took a tuk-tuk to immigration with some Norwegian boys and a French-Canadian (the immigration office was closed, but the boarder was still selling short-term tourist visas until 9:30...whew!), walked across the boarder, took a truck with some other people across the "Friendship Bridge" and were dropped off in the middle of the capital. And we were in LAOS!
So that's it for Thailand (a rather long account for 2 days, no?). There's so much more to tell about the smells, dust, atmosphere, energy and music (sensory overload...it's a rush!)... but I'll hopefully be able to include them in comparisons with our upcoming travels in Cambodia and Laos. More soon and here's to safe travels!
posted by Brenda Ann Elizabeth McKinney @ 5:16 AM
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