Day 3 -- Saturday, 12 December 2009

We start the day off being a true tourist – a half-day tour to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, before heading off to the much-raved Chatuchak Weekend Market for more shopping!

To prepare myself for the Chatuchak spree, I dutifully approached the hotel receptionist to get more Thai baht (the girls simply refused to lend me any and I was down to the last 1000 baht) before heading for breakfast.

The tour starts at 6.30am. We were the first patrons at the breakfast table at 6am. The early morning and my hurting throat totally dampened my breakfast appetite. I only had a bowl of congee.

The tour van picked us up at the hotel lobby. There were a group of 5 Filipinos and 1 German together with us on the tour.The first stop is an Orchid/coconut Farm. We went out of Bangkok and passed by plots and plots of salt field. Seawater is trapped in the field and evaporated to harvest salt. It is a tranquil view.

Salt Fields

Harvested Salt

At the Orchid/coconut Farm, it is the usual ‘made-for-tourist’ farm in any guided tour. There is one section demonstrating how coconut sugar is made and other sections displaying different orchids. Stalls selling souvenirs occupy majority of the farm. We didn’t spend a lot of time there and soon headed for Damnoen Saduak Floating Village which is 45 minutes drive away.

Orchid Farm

These photo albums are beautiful, but not very practical to use as the 3D elephants will collect dust very easily. So I didn't bring them home. :(

Damnern Saduak Floating Market

Damnern Saduak Floating Market is situated in Ratchaburi province. Upon alighting from the van, we boarded a long-tail speed boat for a cruise in the canal towards the floating market. The 30-minutes journey was an interesting but ‘horrifying’ one.

Interesting as this is my first time on a long-tail boat. However, there is more than one boat in the narrow canal at a time; some are even coming from the opposite direction. The motor at the back of the boat made the greyish-looking water in the canal choppy and splashy. To make matter worse, we are sitting the first two rows of the boat! Though we sat tightly in our seats throughout the journey, some splashes still got on us :(.

Just in case you are wondering, no, you won’t get motion-sick from the steady boat ride. (I tend to get seasick but I felt I wasted one pill on this trip ^^)

The long tailed boat

Me & Ruoting on the long tailed boat

See how dirty the water is

Row row row a boat~

Both old architecture and resort-like apartments stood side by side on the banks of the canal. We even pass by a huge Buddha statue. It is quite a sight.

Upon arriving at the floating market, I was pretty disappointed. It had the same ‘made-for-tourist’ feel. The rivers are packed with boats of tourists. The locals seen there are mainly vendors. We might have missed the quieter morning market since we arrived closed to 9.30am. I got down the boat and half-heartedly walked through the souvenir stalls. Very soon, we came to the other part of the floating market – the more Thai-authentic part. You can find people selling food, fruits, veggies and spices.

Sweet Mango

You can also see people cooking in their boats and selling their dishes across the river using a basket tied to a rod.

We couldn’t resist tasting a few of their yummy-looking local dishes.

Buying from the boat lady - notice how the trade is being carried out from river to land?

Tasty coconut pancakes

Pan-fried Chinese dumplings

Taste like the Japanese gyoza but the thin flour skin is more chewy and crispy

Thai Soup glass noodle

Yummy!

We came to a ‘balcony’-area where we can look down at the bustling river from the top. It is a beautiful sight – vibrant and colourful. I am glad I came afterall; it would have been better if it was less touristy.

View of Damnern Saduak Floating Market

You can take photos with the elephant for a small fee

If you have more time, you could hire a boat or rent a canoe and visit the smaller side canals outside of the market area where the locals live and work.

After spending approximately 1.5 hrs there, we head to the final destination of the tour - Carving Wood Shop. It’s amazing watching the wood-carving masters work on the wood planks as they slowly turn a piece of wood into a 3D art.

Hear no evil; Speak no evil; See no evil

The tour agent dropped us at MBK when we get back into Bangkok city.

Dying for some Thai cuisine, we decided to walk-in to the first Thai restaurant we came across as we entered MBK.

The restaurant has a colour theme of white and brown with wooden furniture. Though it has a big pane of glass for one side of the wall which allows natural light to shine in, the soothing colour theme calms the glaring sun rays, creating a pretty relax lunching ambience.

The menu has both English and Thai description with pictures. We quickly decided on a few dishes and waited eagerly for our lunch to arrive. Again, there was no coca cola so we had Thai ice tea instead.

This 'innocent-looking' green curry is what made my sore-throat worse. It is much more spicier than it looks

Tom Yam Goong

Glass Noodle salad

Once again, it is a tasty yet cheap lunch. It cost us less than 600 baht. (MK is 800+ baht) Joyce was so pleasantly surprised that she even forgot to check the bill prior payment.

Chatuchak Weekend Market

I have been hearing about this infamous weekend market even before I had planned to visit Bangkok. Chatuchak weekend market is the largest market in Thailand. It contains more than 5,000 stalls - most of the stalls open only on Saturdays and Sundays. The market offers a wide variety of products including household items, clothing, Thai handicrafts, religious artifacts, collectibles, foods, and even live animals.

We set off to Chatuchak from MBK Shopping mall on taxi for 150baht.

Chatuchak is indeed huge. If you are coming in large groups, do agree on a meeting place in case you got separated in the massive market. Since there are only 4 of us, we decided to stick closely together and started ‘attacking’ the first shop we come upon as we enter the market. Very soon, we found something to our liking and asked for the price. We were shocked when we were quoted 690 baht. This happens for a few more shops. Isn’t this supposed to be Chatuchak - market of the cheap and good?

Apparently, Chatuchak is no longer the market of cheap; most clothes starts from 490 baht and up. Though the price is still considered inexpensive, it does not make sense lugging items back from Bangkok when you can get them at almost the same price in Singapore.

We continue combing the shops and did came across some having ‘sales’ (400 baht and below)

Though all of us managed to get something in the end, I would say that the current Chatuchak is not such a shopping haven after all. The humid/sunny outdoor shopping condition and the over-priced items do not justify for a nice shopping experience. Most vendors are Chatuchak are not as friendly as those we came across in the Platinum mall – they just do not share the same level of enthusiasm when selling their goods. It kind of reduces my shopping adrenaline.

However, as promised, you do get a great variety of items at one location – clothing, accessories, shoes, design sandals, toiletries (nice towels etc), souvenirs, food….you name it, you get it at Chatuchak.

It was stated on almost every website that Chatuchak market operates till 6pm (which is true – most of the shops in Chatuchak market packed up at 6pm.), but we observed many little stalls sprouting up just outside the sheltered Chatuchak market as night falls. Ruoting managed to grab a few cute hair accessories from one of the stalls before we left the market.

We headed back to the hotel for a dinner at a nearby restaurant – Kuang Seafood Restaurant (recommended by one of the hotel staff).

As it was the peak hour, we had a hard time getting a taxi. A tuk-tuk approached us and quoted us 300 baht! The next taxi came along and quoted the same. I think we looked like big, juicy foreigners to them! Unwilling to take up the offer, we walked along the road to a nearby bus-stop. Finally we got on a taxi who quoted us 100 baht.

There was a slight jam along the way. To compensate the nice taxi driver who quoted us a reasonable price, we decided to give the taxi driver some tips at the end of the journey.

At Kuang, the indoor seats were all taken up so we had to sit on one of the four tables on the outside. The waiter was prompt in taking order. Despite my painful throat, I could not resist the spicy food, especially seafood Tom Yam Goong! And at last, there was coca cola on the menu!

Seafood Tom Yam Goong Mini Steamboat

Spicy stir-fried Oyster

Curry Crabs

Overall, Kuang fared fairly well in terms of fresh seafood. The dishes were average (it is definitely better than the breakfast offered by the hotel), but a seafood meal for less than S$20 per pax, was really worthwhile.

We decided to take stroll back to the hotel and get some lozenges for my tortured throat from the convenience store on the way. We had dessert – Black forest Cornetto for 20 baht per cone! It is selling for 3 times as much in Singapore! Slurp!

Back in the hotel, we immediately washed up and dressed up for the night programme – Full body Thai massage (Oil Aromatherapy massage for Ruoting) at Health Land Spa and a drink at Skybar, State Tower.

We took a taxi from the hotel to the nearest Health Land Spa - this time, by a metered-taxi. We had planned to reach Health Land Spa by 9.30pm but were stuck in the traffic jam for a full 1 hour! (The meter hit 100 baht when we finally reached Healthland Spa! So its actually cheaper to take a metered-taxi!)

It was already 10pm and there were no slots available for massage! (We should have called for an appointment but it slipped our mind.) Feeling disappointed, Joyce put on an extremely upset expression and told the receptionist that it was our last day in Bangkok and that we would REALLY love to have a massage before we go off.

Surprisingly, this worked. They agreed to put us on the last slots for massage before closing – this also means that we would have to leave out the visit to the Sky bar.

Ruoting managed to get a full oil aromatherapy massage (1.5hrs for 850 baht), while the rest of us get a 1 hr full body Thai massage for 450 baht (usual price: 2 hrs for 450 baht). Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience. I never knew my arms can bend so far over my shoulder and my legs behind my back. My tired body felt rejuvenated at the end of the 1 hr session (though I almost got suffocated when the masseur did my shoulders as my sore throat got pressed repeatedly against the pillow.). It was too bad we did get to enjoy the full 2 hours.

Feeling dazed and relaxed at the same time (it was past 12 midnight), we decided to head back to the hotel to pack our luggage for the early check-out the next day.

.......... Day 4