Floating Market, Bangkok, Thailand

our hotel staff was quite helpful to us. they managed to get a good taxi rate to bring us to the floating market, wait for us, and bring us back! did you know that there are more than one floating market? or maybe the "others" were actually different docks/jetty that bring you to just one same market? who knows eh....

anyway, the taxi came super early morning and surprisingly we managed to get up and get ready on time. the ride to the markets were quite long, nearly 2 hrs! on the way we got to see some sights of Bangkok and the outskirts...

finally we reached this little jetty, and we were greeted with lovely fresh coconuts! yumm!!! that perked us up!! while having our coconuts, we saw a few boats splashing by and we were also given a brief explanation on where we're going and what we can do while on this journey.. then we hopped on to our little boat :D

the ride was interesting! the canals were done up nicely (cemented banks) though water overflows to the other side... you can see water under the houses at the side of the canals... i can only imagine how it's like at night or when it rains!! Ooooo.... on the way, we could see people washing clothes, washing dishes... all at the banks of the canals... children playing with their dogs and with water.. such fun.. not too sure bout hygene though... hmm...

then we were brought to this Coconut Sugar Farm. it's part of the tour. we got off, then went to see how coconut sugar was made... interesting as i've never tasted coconut sugar before. it's from the "juice" from the palm and cooked over wood flames. it can be quite sweet. and not only sugar, they also make sweets and peanut munchies from it.

at the Coconut Sugar Farm, they were also selling souviners... don't ask me why they were selling these (pics below).. LOL!!! they also sold the normal ones, like picture frames, key chains, magnets...etc

after the Coconut Sugar Farm, we continued our journey, passing a few shops on the left and on the right.. sometimes stopping so that we could buy some things... we were not really interested, i was looking forward more to the actual market to try their foods!... after a few attempts of telling the (btw cute) boatman that we were not interested, he brought us straight to the market...

my eyes just became bigger as there was sooooo many type of food that were sold in these boats! i wanted to try em all! but we had a time limit and i was the only one who was interested in eating... takkan i eat all by myself right?! anyway i found out that there was a drinks boat, fruits boat, even raw meat boat, noodles boat, rice (with dishes) boat, and not sure what other food they were selling... just wished we had more time....

i did managed to try their pork noodle that was made by a lady in her boat, i just saw her sitting there, turing left and right making the noodles, everything was at her arms length, and if she couldn't reach, she had a stick with a hook to get to the thing she wanted. she was at the bank, and had a helper help her with serving to people that sat at the bank of the canal. here's the lil clip i took.



we also had some mango rice and fried spring rolls on the way.. yummy! oh.. and can you believe it, there was a canal traffic jam when we were there too! too many boats! all couldn't move! there was no system on going on the left and coming on the right, everyone was everywhere!!! you can imagine the hayvok!
once we were done, we were brought to a temple (our first temple visit) that was by the bank of the canal. we got down, visited the temple, took some pics and hop on the boat again to get back to the "jetty".

i had fun! though i secretly wished we had more time and to try more foods.... but overall, no regrets with the long journey there and back. :) if i do go back to Bangkok, i'll sure to make another trip to the floating markets :)