Holy shit! I couldn't
believe it; we woke up in the morning and we weren't carried away by a pack of
killer Thai ants. Yup, Colleen survived
her first night in Thailand and as luck would it have her excessive use of bug
spray the night before apparently kept all of the ants away from our bed. Well, it was either the spray or the fact
that she made me march around in my candy cane adorned underwear for a solid
hour killing every ant and anything that resembled an ant (see: pieces of dust,
cookie crumbs, etc). The wifey also got
the chance to talk to her Mom back home via Skype which I think was good for
her in helping her to get over her homesickness. This of course led to me having to figure out
what to do with our day, cause hey, that's what men are for.
After some very serious research (okay, maybe I just flipped
through a couple pages in a guidebook), I decided to inquire with the woman
working at the front desk of our hostel about getting to a place known as
Amphawa.
Amphawa was home to one of
several floating markets that surround Bangkok.
Apparently, it was not as touristy and overrun by middle-aged
blotchy-skinned Europeans as some of the other more popular floating markets.
After some initial language confusion between
myself and the woman at the front desk, she wrote out the word
"Amphawa" for me on a piece of paper in Thai and gave me walking
directions to the nearby mini-bus depot.
I just love saying "Amphawa".
So now you find yourself asking;
Q: What is a floating
market?
A: Wikipedia (cause let's
be real, Wikipedia is never wrong) defines a floating market as "a
market where goods are sold from boats. Originating in times and places where
water transport played an important role in daily life, most floating markets
operating today mainly serve as tourist attractions, and are chiefly found in Thailand,
Indonesia, and Vietnam."
Q: What
is a mini-bus and what the bejesus do they do?
A:In
Thailand and throughout much of southeast Asia, mini-buses and vans are a
common form of transport used to get people places. They traditionally hold anywhere from 9-12
passengers, although often times they like to pile as many people in to the
vehicle as humanly possible. Mini-buses
are often times the cheapest form of transportation to get somewhere that might
be viewed as "long distance".
They can be extremely uncomfortable, ridiculously awkward, and you will
find the most ridiculous mish-mash of people, both Thai and foreigners all
catching a ride together.
 |
| Mini-bus terminal in Bangkok. One of many I am most sure. |
 |
| Best part of Thailand: cheap slushies and smoothies at every corner! |
Clutching our
little piece of paper with one Thai word written on it (could have said "Penis
Licker" for all I know) we made our way over to the mini-bus terminal and
found a gentleman who assured us he could get us to our destination. He rounded us up and directed us to his company's
ticket window where we each bought our tickets for under $3 Canadian. The girl at the ticket window pointed for us
to sit down and we did just that cause really what else where we going to do,
as there were mini-busses whizzing all around us. About half an hour later, the ticket girl
started snapping her fingers at us and pointed to one of the vans. We ran over and handed to the driver our
ticket and hoped we were boarding the bus for "Amphawa" and not
"Penis Licker". Colleen and I
had to sit in the very front of the van with the driver, and it made for a very
uncomfortable 1.5 hour drive. How
exactly the companies make any money charging people less than $3 for 1.5 hours
of transport in a van I will never know.
But hey, not my problem!
 |
| Is this the famous floating market? | | | | | | | |
After what seemed
like an eternity, we were let off at the Amphawa mini-bus station, which was
actually nothing more than a folding table at the side of the road with a few
people kind of lazing about. As
mentioned above, the floating market is actually a series of vendors who sell
various foods and things from their boats, but that did not get under way until
dinner time. During the day though,
there were lots of shops and alleyways to explore along the banks of the river
and surrounding area. There were hundreds
of shops crammed neck in neck with thousands of people selling a wide variety
of foods and knick-knacks useless shit. My purchases that I was most
proud of for the day were a ball of cotton candy ($0.35) and a corn on the cob
that was cooked on what appeared to be a piece of an old dirty tin roof
($0.35). I figured I might as well get
my bout of food poisoning out of my system right away.
 |
| No way, this corn selling station passed any health regulations. |
 |
| As long as the corn is Deeeee-licious who really cares!? |
I tried a few
other mystery treats before we sauntered into a fellow who was offering boat
rides for less than $2. Jackpot! Colleen and I both figured that the since it
was so cheap we would probably be going on a 10 or 15 minute boat ride up and
down the canal, and that would be that.
Boy, were we wrong. After waiting
about 20 minutes for our shoeless and toothless boat tour salesman to round up
other unsuspecting souls, we ventured out into the water for what would end up
being an almost three hour excursion.
After cruising out of the initial area surrounding all the shops, we
were led to a variety of different stops all along the shoreline in the
surrounding area. Without going into
excruciating details, I will say that we saw many temples and monks (both real
and mechanical) and fed a wide variety of animals, including cows, fish,
camels, ostriches (evil sonsofabitches), and satanic goats. I lost count, but I think we made around ten
different stops at all these random places, and by the end I was getting
worried that Colleen and I might miss the last bus back to Bangkok. Thankfully,
our boat driver did lead us back to the night market, which was now lit up as
it was after dark. It truly was an
amazing sight, and one of those sights that really makes you appreciate going
to new places and seeing these things.
 |
| John C. Reilly said it best, "Boats N Hoes". |
 |
| Mechanical Buddha just looking for some handouts. Respect. |
 |
| Cows cute and innocent. |
 |
| Goats, friendly enough if you happen to be a young child. |
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| Ostriches...straight fuckin' evil! |
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| Tress and clouds. At least that's what I think the kids are calling them these days. |
After snapping a
few pictures, Colleen and I headed back to the bus station folding table
and luckily just caught the last bus back to Bangkok for the night. We were fortunate enough this time not to
have to sit with the driver and both of us promptly passed out in the back. Dinner was once again had at Jeffer Steak,
because quite frankly we both love our "home food" aka "fat
food". Back at the hostel there
were no ants to be seen in the room, which I must assume was because we had
previously killed every ant within a 100 yard radius of our room with our
potent bug spray the night before. Sweet
dreams!
 |
| Floating market at night. |
|
|
|
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| Class act of a bus station if I ever saw one. |
~Brentski~
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