Day 3: Amphawa Floating Market

My plan for today had me leaving my plush guesthouse Hansaah and checking into the much less costly hostel, Three of a Kind. How much less? 1/4 the price. Sadly, this first day’s boon was blown on accident: the ฿1000 security deposit refund entered the pocket with my phone, and my phone must have pulled it out onto the street somewhere along the route. Tossing money — a little over $30 for my $50/day budget — in the roads is not part of the thrifty plan, but I like to imagine some Thai feeling very happy at their luck.

The next part of my plan was to go to the weekend market. It’s supposed to be gigantic and awesome. This part was foiled by the check-in to the hostel: true to the stereotype of hostels, I was shortly invited to go to the floating market — also on my list — and my rule is go when invited. And so I went. Sticking to a plan is not the most important thing.

Now, the floating market is a ways away from Bangkok city: it’s a two hour minibus ride, taken from the Victory Monument. The Victory Monument is truly awesome: it’s a vast traffic circle with the eponymous monument at its center. Raised concrete walkways ferry pedestrians around the perimiter. The overall effect is incredible, slightly sci-fi due to the scale.

After waiting for 45 minutes for the minibus — they go when they’re full — we’re off to the floating market. Getting out of Bangkok revealed the scale of this megalopolis that’s easy to forget when taking surface transportation around the old-city tourist sites. It takes a long time to get out, passing countless monstrous skyscrapers. That’s the thing about Bangkok: you see these numberless huge buildings alongside hoards of tiny street vendor shacks. The very large and the very small juxtaposed to give an impressive feeling of scale.

On to the market. It consist in an array of canalside shops with walkways at the rivers edge and boats parked plaque-like along the edges. Customers walk the water’s edge and do business with the shopkeepers-cum-boaters. There’s an impossible array of foodstuffs available: tiny fried eggs, all sorts of crustaceans, fish boiled, steamed or fried, sausages, sweets, fruit, fruit jellies, icecream and the now commonplace copyright-infringing electronics.

This is a dream place for snacking. The portions are small, so you can sample a lot. Deceptively-small: several times I needed to suppress my Costco-honed instinct to pick up the ‘free samples’. Thinking we should have a real meal, stopped for lunch at a little restaurant operated by a group of Lady Boys (not even gonna guess at the collective noun for multiple lady boys) who were very entertaining. The soup however — not so good. Never knew a variant on Tom Yum Kai that was grey/white not orange.

Even before the fantastic variety of food, you notice the crush of people. It’s amazing, and likely what folks have in mind when they talk about the crowds in Southeast Asia and the lack of personal space. Claustrophobia rears its head while walking down the narrow winding lanes next to the canal and over the bridges. Absolutely clogged with people. Remarkably they’re almost all locals, not at least not western tourists. That 2 hour minibus ride is an effective moat.

Sing us out busker-man!