Day II in Bangkok, my sister and I were up and ready to go early. We hired a car to take us to the Dumnoen Saduak floating markets outside of Bangkok. We knew ahead of time that these markets cater to tourists but we also heard that it was a must see. I definitely wanted to check it out since I remember my mother telling me about bartering on the river by boat for goods when she lived there some 34 years ago. I wanted to see it firsthand even if tourism had made its changes to its authenticity. When we arrived we hired a boat to take us to the center of all the action. The market consists of numerous channels that dump into each other. On the way to the center you can see wooden walkways on each side of the river and people’s huts that they live in. The terrain in this area is lush and green. When you enter the center you have shop fronts on each side of the river selling souvenirs while the people in the boats are selling mostly food and drink items. Soon we were surrounded by boats offering numerous things for sale. I started with a fresh coconut to drink. I eventually bought spring rolls, peeled grapefruit, candied bananas, and I even landed myself a beer. Each boat that passed you by offered something different to try. I enjoyed trying everything that looked interesting which was made possible by the small portions. After finishing the markets my sister and I headed back to Bangkok and walked around the city until we were easily persuaded to experience Thai massage. Believe me that it didn’t take much persuasion to get us to agree to have a go at it. I love massages and you can’t beat it with an hour and a half massage costing somewhere between 12-15 dollars. From that point on we were hooked and pretty much had a Thai massage every chance we could. We finished our day by having an early evening to get ready to catch our flight to the north the next morning. Experiencing the floating market earlier that day was a lot of fun and if given the chance I would definitely do it again.   

On the way to the market center

Dumnoen Saduak floating market

Spring Rolls

My sister and I

Trying the local grapefruit

Thai woman selling coconuts and onions

Mangosteen…I wish I could find these in the states

How excited am I to have fried rice again?

You can find more photos from this trip at www.ariagiovanni.com

In January of 2008, I took my sister to Thailand. I have always said to myself that I wanted to take her back to see where she was born and of course, I was interested in seeing it myself. My sister was born in Bangkok and had not been back since she was 3 months old, so this trip had more meaning to us than just a vacation. I planned the details of the trip myself and everything went off without a hitch. We arrived in Bangkok and stayed for a couple of days to explore the city. We then continued on to Chiang Mai in the north and Koh Lanta Yai in the south before making a pit stop in Japan for a few days. It was a nice overview of the country exploring a major city, the jungle, and then the beaches. The terrains are extremely different from each other, which added to the variety of the trip. It was also interesting being immersed into the religions of the different regions with Bangkok being 92% Buddhist while Koh Lanta Yai being 95% Muslim. The Thai people are some of the nicest people you will meet. They were always very helpful, gentle, and full of smiles.