Before arriving to Thailand, I promised myself: no tourist traps.
By the second day of gracing my presence in Southeast Asia, I already broke my promise and quite frankly, it’s quite hard to avoid. No matter how much research you put into places “off the beaten path” you’re eventually going to end up at one many and they’re not always that bad, you just kind of roll with the punches and act amused when you come across the Disneyland-esque cues and souvenir shops.
We had to take a cab ride from our original hotel reservation to our new reservation and our driver suggested a few places to check out near Bangkok and offered to take us to any that we wanted to check out. One was the floating market and later that evening we did some research by asking some locals where to go and each one suggested the Amphawa Floating Market. It’s the floating market where locals get their shopping errands done and is not somewhere travelers frequent. I read about the different floating markets that have been created for the sole purpose of attracting tourists and selling items made in China to them, but we just wanted to observe how those who live near the floating village genuinely go about their day.
Stick to Your Guns
We didn’t. We called the cab driver, agreed on a price and decided to head out the following morning. When we got in the car, I handed the driver a piece paper with the name of the floating village, Amphawa, but he insisted it was closed, “only go at night!” In return, I insisted it was open, but with his lack of English and my zero Thai, we just said okay…to the Damnoen Saduak floating market it is. It’s kind of hard to argue with a local who is telling you something is closed. “It’s closed? Okay, it’s closed.”
When we arrived at the markets, we were dropped off at a canal where long motorized boats take you to the floating market for 1,000 baht, which is about $30..PER PERSON. We were absolutely furious at this driver. We knew he would be receiving a bonus for bringing us there, which was his motivation whereas if he dropped us off at the Amphawa we would already be at the market. Since we were already there and it was an hour cab ride, we decided to stay and bargained the price down to 500 baht each. Still ridiculous. When we had spoken to the locals the night before, they mentioned that the boat rides were 50 baht, which is roughly about $1.50, which we later confirmed as true, but it was not offered where we had been dropped off.
Never-the-less, the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market is very beautiful and most importantly, our business does help the economy of the local community.
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I follow your instruction to went Bangkok and see floating markets in real. so i plan a trip to go Thailand from niagra falls canadian side.i stay in concierge hotel in Bangkok.I had great fun at the floating markets and definitely recommend going for a unique, old thai experience. It’s fun to be on a little boat (I prefer the row boats, the motored ones are not as fun or authentic). The negative part is that practically everything in every stall is the exact same! I bought one thing because I felt like I had to.
I didn’t go to the floating market for the same reason: I didn’t want to go to any tourist traps. I stuck with the plan, but kind of regret it, cause it really looks amazing indeed! A pity that some locals spoil it by considering tourists as a bundle of money… I remember I wanted to see a temple and a local guy said: “closed” just like you, despite a huge number of tourist buses outside 🙂
We totally feel each other on this! Incidents like this get frustrating and old after a while, but hopefully the end result is something positive and memorable 🙂 Cheers!
I would have not paid the driver – was he meant to take you back? Then you pay when you go back. This way, you can take the boat to the other side and then leave him to wait. AND WAIT. AND WAIT. My other tip? When you bargain down a price, you offer 1/10 of the suggested price. If they say something costs 100 you offer 10. I am ruthless, but it works!
HAHA whaat? How would we have found him later?! The whole thing was just a mess, it was far from from Bangkok so we would have needed to find a ride back still. But we did pay him in the end and not before. Bargaining in Thailand or anywhere in SE Asia is definitely an art I took wayyy to long to master. Once I got it down, I managed to basically ruthlessly start from: I basically want this for free and then eventually met somewhere close to in the middle. 😛
I would like to visit it too. I think I skipped it while there because I don´t remember seeing any of that. Looks quite nice
It’s a bit away from Bangkok, about an hour with a taxi.
Throughout my travels, I’ve found that anyone who owns a device with a motor needs to be approached with caution. Regardless, I really like the portrait shots that this trip produced. Having a slice of life with a human face afterwards makes for nice memories!
Yes I agree! I got to take back some nice memories for sure 🙂
Yeah exactly, it turned into a great photo opportunity!
OH we were in Thailand this summer and visited this awesome floating market ~ we really enjoyed it and tasted everything we could find! Not sure about that taxi driver – we met some shady character while there as well!
The food there was good! Especially because this was our 1st full day in Bangkok, we were so excited to try the tasty food!
Visiting Thailand in Feb 2017. Will keep away from the scammers. Thanks for the post.