Another excursion yesterday. This time, to the floating market!!
We had another long drive so half way we stopped at a coconut farm (no trained monkeys here though) where they make sugar from the palm flower. They then bake the sugar to solidify it. We got to try some, it was the texture of Kendall mint cake and the taste of delicious fudge, no flavours added at all.
I'm not sure if we can bring any home with us or not, Julie, do you have any idea?
We had the same guide today as our trip to Sam Roi Yod. On our journey he went a bit crazy with his Thai ghost stories... The men ghosts have their bodies but the lady ghosts have only their heads and the entrails hanging from their necks, 'that's how you can telw that you been visited by one... In bygone days, we hang our washing in the willages and leave it in the dark and we know that they ha been because the washing it is covered in chit, you know chit?! Because then, the toilet outside too, yeah? Not inside. And you cannot use your hands when you a ghost with no hands, you hab to use your teeth so they go to the toilets and then wipe their mouths on the washing, how else it cubberd in chit?! Yeaaaaaah! I know tourists don't belee, but how else it cubberd in chit?!!! Like your witch in England on the broom, you know? They fly, but just the head and the entrails. Yeeaaaah. But they nearly all dead now. Because of the ligh'. Boom boom boom boom. The ligh' come on the ghost they die. Yeah. Now the ligh' is more than the bygone day. So they nearly all dead.'
He was hilarious.
He also told us that he trained to become a Buddhist monk, most thai men train to practice abstinence 'because they just a nommal man, so if a lady touch them they in trouble.' They train for three months and then if they want to leave to work in the real world, that's ok. While he was training he witnessed a monk meditate for three days straight with no food or water or moving in that whole time. He believed that the monk was flying and visiting somewhere else in the world 'else how can he sit there for so long? I not belee until I see with my eyes.'
Our next stop was the jetty to catch another long-tail speedboat. This one was even more worn and weathered than the one we had caught in Bangkok the day before and even lower. Still no speed limit even though this khlong was even narrower. A boat came speeding towards us and I got drenched with filthy khlong water. I'd had enough of f***ing thai boats now, so when we arrived at the floating market and had to disembark I felt quite happy. Until the guide said that we could now get into an even smaller boat to get in the midst of the floating market. NO!! I'm not getting on a bloody camel!! There were two Chinese girls on the excursion with us, so the guide then said that they would have to pay more if Simon and I didn't go. Simon tried the pressure tactics but I knew that I'd had enough by that point, so I put my foot down and told him I definitely wasn't going on the boat, but he could still go and I would walk around the market on the land and along side the river market. So that's what we did. Simon popped off for half an hour and I wandered the market on my own.

Serena didn't want to go so I went on the boat with the two girls we were on tour with. The market was insane and total chaos. Stalls flank both sides of the canal as well as stalls on boats, if you even look at their stall you were instantly pulled over by a hook on a pole. Everything was on sale from fruit to Buddha statues even people with snakes to have your picture taken with. Half way round it got crazy the whole width was full of boats which were crashing into each other, the front of one boat came over the side of ours and I had to push it away. After this it got a bit calmer and me and the girls did some bartering and bought some fruit and souvenirs then it was time to dock and find Serena in the market on land.

Once we were reunited, we bought a couple of things that I had spotted and headed back to the bus.
Our next stop was another temple! This one was home to the oldest pagoda in Thailand (pagoda means something different here). It was pretty sectacular. The original pagoda is over 2000 years old and is inside the one you can see today to protect it. It was ridiculously hot and we only had half an hour to quickly whip around the perimeter of the pagoda. They had all the different positions of Buddha in statue form all around. It was amazing.
Our last stop was at Samphran village for lunch and a Thai culture show. After lunch we headed through to the rose garden and were greeted by three elephants! I was instantly blown away by their presence, but the longer we lingered the more agitated one of the elephants seemed and I don't entirely know how I feel about the situation. The elephants put on a show for us, demonstrating how elephants help the thai villagers to carry out difficult work. There were two adults and a baby. The baby seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself and even bobbed his head in time to the music, but I wasn't convinced that the adults were as joyful. We're off to the elephant foundation tomorrow to look after some old lady elephants and I'm really hoping that it's a very different experience.
The thai culture show was great. We watched traditional thai drumming, fingernail dancing, Muay Thai, long and short arm poke fighting, sword fighting, and a traditional thai wedding ceremony. I really enjoyed all of that. Especially the dancing. So graceful.
As we were driving back to our hotel, we drove past a sign for a business called cabbages and condoms!! Lol.
In the evening we went into town to the night market and had our first go at street food!! It was all so good!
We had A half an hour leg massage each which cost us just 99 baht each (about £1.80)!! We went to the dessert place for a drink again as it's a little oasis of calm in an otherwise hectic location. The owner (German, not English as we originally thought) came and sat with us for a chat and was telling us the story of how his business came to be. It was nice talking to someone who lives here. We left not long before the market closes and got a tuk tuk back to our hotel.
Today we've sat on our balcony in the sun/shade, in and out of the jacuzzi, reading. No exciting stories at all for today I'm afraid.