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Well, we made it back to Bangkok and all of the craziness in Phuket seems a world away… Since we had one more day in Bangkok, Korby, Jenny and I decided to hit up the famous Damnoen Saduak Floating market a few hours outside of Bangkok.. We got up at like 5am and caught a cab over to the Southern Bus station… We obviously looked like tourists, since as soon as we got out of the cab, we were shuttled to a waiting bus that was headed for the floating market. The 2 hour bus ride only cost 65 baht, and through the whole ride, we were the only tourists on the whole thing… Thai folks of all slices (schoolkids, old women, young peeps, everyone) came and went. And then finally after two hours the bus starts to go down a dirt road, finally arriving at some sort of pier.

We exit the bus, and are greeted by a friendly english speaking person, who charged us WAY too much for a one hour tour of the floating markets. Grrr. Nothing like feeling like you’ve been ripped off. The thing was, the bus had dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, so it looked like we were kind of stranded.. I’m not sure if you can walk to the actual floating market, but once we got on the boat, it was a good 20 minute boat ride through the canals until we got to the market..

Thailand Tip #6: If you want to go to the floating market, take the bus down.. and then maybe walk or get a ride to the market, but don’t pay a lot. Once you get to the market itself, you can hire a little motor-less boat for like 300 baht an hour. These folks are quite wily about getting money out of our American hands. Grr! Go check out the real markets, like in Chinatown and the Flower Market — those were both much, much cooler, imho.

Anyway… the market was ok. It wasn’t really worth taking a bus for 4 hours r/t and then getting kicked in the ass by some wily thai folks. And on top of it all, one of my goals for Thailand was to find some mangosteen, and I was JUST about to get my hands on some when all of a sudden.. vroooooooom.. our boat dude races us out of the market and deposits us at the bus stop. Fecking hell.

I mean… As Korby correctly predicted, the floating market did produce some pretty cool pictures, which make the place look pretty cool, which will probably trick some other tourists into going. So, I’ll only post ONE obligatory pic from the floating market here.

After the floating market, we just walked around for a bit, and found a really cool *real* market. I mean, that was pretty damn awesome and I had some tasty thai food for 20 baht. Like, that’s what stuff is supposed to cost in Thailand.

Thailand Tip #7: If you’re pulling out a 1000 baht note, you better be getting a lot of change back, cuz you shouldn’t really need a 1000 baht note to buy anything really in Thailand.. Except if it’s obviously touristy or made for Americans. We tried to pay for a few cabs with 1000 baht notes, and we had to go to the hotel to make change cuz the cabbies didn’t have that much change.

We got back to Bangkok and went over to Chinatown just to wander… That was refreshingly cool… We really had no idea where we were going, but in just wandering, we stumbled upon a fascinating market in the alleyways. The alleys were maybe 10 feet wide, and jam packed with all sorts of vegetables, foods, and sundries (what sundries are, I’m not sure, but it seemed appropriate here)..

And, since it was Chinatown and all, I got to use some of my Mandarin Chinese skillz. All over Bangkok, I kept seeing these amulets:

I really wanted to get one, but since I really have no idea what they are, or how much to pay, I refrained.. All I know is that if you’re serious about shopping for one, you apparently need to carry around a little magnifying glass, and look at it real close and stuff. The one that I really liked was the image of a figure with his hands covering his face… When I asked the woman what it was for, she just told me it was for “good luck.” Aha!! That one is called “Phra Pitta” and it is a protection amulet.. Cool. Ooo.. a NY Times article on the amulet markets.. Looks like next time I go to Bangkok, I’ll be ready to shop.

The next day, we headed to the airport for our flight back to San Francisco. Of course, things couldn’t be simple.

Typhoon Wipha was in full force, and hitting Taipei right as our flight was about to take off. So, our flight was delayed by 3 hours. But, after the ordeal in Phuket just a few days before, I was a little rattled by the whole flying experience. Hmm.. Is 3 hours enough for a Typhoon to pass? Hmm… at least we weren’t flying China Airlines, who only delayed their flight by 2.5 hours… By the time we actually took flight for Taipei, the real delay was more like 4 hours, but as we descended into Taipei, it was clearly not quite over. It was a slightly terrifying landing — we could see crazy winds outside, and hear as the pilot fired up the engines to accommodate for them. That said, the pilot made one of the smoothest three point landings that I’ve ever been in. Kudos to the Eva Air pilots on that one…

The flight home to San Francisco was safe and uneventful.. and then we were home.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 12:25 am and is filed under thailand, trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.