Day 244: The Floating Market

Since I had spent all my time in Thailand so far in Bangkok I decided to do a day trip to a place a couple hours away from the city - the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. I had booked the day trip through my hostel the evening before, and the company running it picked me up with a shuttle bus early in the morning. After a few stops for other people the bus went to the main office where everybody got off and switched to various new buses, depending on which of the many tours out of the city we were doing. The ride to the market was pretty uneventful, and not with any terribly interesting scenery unfortunately.

The floating market is about what the name suggests. It's a section of canals with some shops set up along the sides of the canals, and other shops and vendors being on boats, some tied down and some floating freely. When potential customers float by they will hook the boats with a stick and draw them in next to their little shop to browse. The shops tended to be pretty touristy, but it was still a nice, bustling atmosphere and certainly a unique type of shopping.

After looking around the market I met back up with the others on the trip and we got on a faster boat to go further through the canals, leaving the market and going through more resedential and eventually rural areas. Outside of town we finally docked and found our bus waiting for the trip back to Bangkok. Unfortunately the ride out wasn't as smooth as coming in. It started to rain, and now that it was in the afternoon traffic was much heavier. The ride that took about 2 hours in the morning took about 4.5 returning, most of which was in traffic jams trying to get through the city. After the long, dull ride through the city I was happy to get a bowl of my favourite curry once again and relax in the hostel for the evening.