The Floating Market

We just returned to Bangkok from a town about 2 hours from here that has a floating market. It was a great experience and I'm glad we went. It's been my favourite experience in Thailand so far.

Even though the floating market is now mainly for tourists and not for Thai people, it's still a worthwhile experience. However, we were warned that it's better to go to the town and stay the night to get up early in the morning before the hordes of tourists come in on the tour buses. I'm very glad we listened. The first hour of our boat ride through the canals was very peaceful. Only a couple of other boats on the water. It's mainly people selling souveniers, but there were a few boats of ladies selling fruit and vegetables. Mark even got some soup noodles from a man making them on his boat. Once it hits 9am, the buses pull in and it's no longer quiet. That was actually exciting though to see all the boats on the water and people trying to sell their goods. It's just too bad that we weren't witnessing locals doing this and not other "faroungs or foreigners" like us.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the area where we were staying seemed to have a large population of people that are deaf. Most of the street vendors in the area are deaf. We discovered this the first day and I was immediately curious if they would understand the sign language that I know. I still haven't quite figured out if Thai sign language is similar or the same as American sign language. I tried having a conversation today with the woman who sells stickers. I'm not sure if she didn't understand the sign language or if she did, but just didn't understanding what I was asking. In any rate, thank you is still the same.

Ok, so I'm not as good at eating spicy food as I originally thought. I kept telling Mark that I wouldn't have any problems here. Well, I have to take that back. The food is incredibly spicy. And even though I've had a cold and been unable to smell or taste for the past 4 or 5 days, my mouth still burns when something is spicy. I'm craving plain old bland food! We've been eating a lot in the food courts of these enormous malls that are all over the place. Most of the time the foodcourts are the same or just a bit more expensive than eating at a food stall, but they are much cleaner. And they are definitely cheaper than eating at a restaurant. We spend about 3 to 5 dollars per meal. What's also interesting is the method of payment at these food courts. Before you go in, you buy coupons in any amount that you want, say 200 baht. When you order, you pay with the coupons, no cash is exchanged at the places that are making the food. Not only does this save time in making change, but it also means that the workers are not handling dirty money and food. Makes a lot of sense to me. If you have extra coupons you simply go to the refund counter and they give you the cash back.

Well, that's about it for now. We are heading to Singapore tomorrow and then onto Malaysia for a month.