We were up at 7am this morning to catch a mini-bus to visit the floating markets. It was about an hour and a half trip with about ten other tourists. We passed the usual mix of shacks, houses and pillared mansions, dogs wandering the streets aimlessly or asleep on tables before making a few turns off the main road, flying past some prawn and fish farms and ending up at the departure point at the canal.
Here we boarded a long-tail boat ( the motor is attached via a long pole used for steering, hence the name) and did a half hour dash down the canal. Unfortunately for us we had picked the touristy floating market (as warned in the book Larna had perused at our first hostel) which was selling more souvenirs than fruit and vegetables. Still it was quite something being "hauled in" to the various floating stalls once we were in the paddle boat. Later we sampled "mangosteens" (delicious) and the local litchi, which looks vaguely like a red scrotum and on this occassion was a bit tasteless.
I am fast learning that there indeed many "mini-scams" out to catch the unprepared tourist (such as ourselves) in Bangkok. I say "mini" because they only end up costing you time or a few extra baht...
On the way back to Bangkok from the floating markets, we stopped at a wood carving factory (opportunity to watch wood carving and BUY wood carving) and the gem gallery (the whole time I thought our guide was saying "James" gallery). This was the second gem gallery we have been taken to while in Bangkok, as our tuk-tuk driver also thought it a good idea to show us "James gallery". Today our guide openly admitted that she gets "sponsored" by these businesses to take tourists to hopefully spend lots of their money. Hilariously, she told us on the way to the James gallery, we didn't have to walk through if we had been before, but could we just "follow her through the gem gallery" on the way to our min-van...which we did, so everyone ended up paying another visit. Classic!
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