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Australian Female Takes on the World
Today i went on an organised tour to see the floating markets and the grand palace. It meant waking up early for the pickup, which turned out to be 30 mins late (of course) and by a man in a dodgy bloody bomb of a car! thankgod i had 2 other guys from the hostel with me also on a tour, as im not sure that i would have been entirely happy getting into this crappy car with a man claiming to be picking us up on behalf of the tour company!
So eventually we got to our proper groups and guides and the day went ahead as planned. But surely, wouldnt you think that it would have been appropriate of the agency to inform customers that you are picked up by someone else, then taken to the group departure point?!! For all we knew he coulda been a psycho that preys on young touristy looking people sitting in front of hostels!
The floating markets were really disappointing, not sure what i expected, but i didnt get what i wanted! i guess i had visions of us mingling with locals as they proceeded to buy fruit and veges from vendors in single person boats. But no, it was just a big tourist trap, with hardly any fresh produce and hardly any locals doing their shopping! instead it was all cheap souvenirs. a fun experience though.
after there, i went to the Grand Palace, where the royal family reside if they come to town. not really all that much to see. but a must do on the tourist attraction list, i guess.
interesting note to add, like on the tuktuks, even with my arranged tours today, we had to stop off FOUR times at unscheduled points. 3 souvenir shops, and 1 snake farm! gets pretty annoying being forced to wander around shops, not intending to buy anything, just so the tour operator gets some sort of incentive.
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