Day 24...Bangkok/Chiang Mai

Firstly my apologies for not putting the photos with the last entries - forgot the lead to the camera...shall put them up next time.

Ola,

So today was another adventurous which is fantastic but so many adventures in a row is really tiring. We had booked a half day tour to the floating markets in Damnoen Saduak which is about 80km southwest of Bangkok so it took a couple of hours to get too - yes a couple of hours, the minibuses are so past their sell-by date Im surprised they still move. They jammed about 10 people into this small van so it was really crammed on a hot day and the AC wasn't really working - doh! To top it off as well the ceiling was so low in the van that Dom had to spend the entire time bent over as he couldn't sit up. On the way to the floating markets we stopped at a coconut sugar factory which was interesting even though we didn't have much interest in it, for us it was more about the smell of the sugar - devine! There was also about 20million other tourists there which kind of ruined it a bit - still, there was a small market and orchid garden as well which kept us entertained for a while. Thankfully this was the only stop as we wanted the journey to end as quickly as possible.

Damnoen Saduak is like Venice in the fact that it is entirely made up of canals, but is a much poorer place. We arrived at our starting point where we had to switch to a long tail speedboat for a tour of the canals. As soon as we had sat down some random guy shoved a camera in our face and took a picture - extremely strange we thought...we found out why later. The tour on the speedboat was great, the boat was so narrow that we actually though that it would tip over at some point, also every time we hit the waves caused by someone elses boat we would go flying into the air and crash back down onto the water, which is not as refreshing as one may think as the water is murky/dirty/green - so our mouths stayed firmly shut as to not swallow anything. We were able to see all the huts on the water and inside them too, they were so bare, obviously these people just live with the necessities. I think its very admirable that people can live like that but I in no way envy it. Im afraid that the only time I will willingly give up luxuries is on this holiday, and even at that we haven't stayed anywhere that doesn't have hot water!

We got to the markets which were amazing, people including little old ladies rowing up and down the canals selling everything from hats to meat in their boats exchanging money over the water! Some of the canals were lined with shops that you could only get to by boat. We wandered around for about an hour or so before heading back to Bangkok. Just before we got on the bus we passed a stall selling plates with pictures on, and there we were staring back at ourselves beautifully posed on a plate: mouth open, eyes closed. We didn't buy it.

Our overnight bus left at about 5pm so we had about 3 hours to waste when we got back to Bangkok which we spent enjoying the fresh fruit juices we have come to love about Bangkok - whether the juice comes from a shop or a street stall, it is freshly made in front of you and it only costs about 30cents (Euro).

Unsurprisingly we were not looking forward to the bus journey as it was supposed to take 12 hours - little did we realise at the time that we would spend the first hour circling bangkok as the bus driver forgot to pick up two people, then he stopped every 20 minutes for a toilet stop! The only thing that kept us entertained was the two real 'darleen' Americans sitting behind us. The wife was moaning that she didn't realise the bus would be 'liyke thiiis', when the husband tried telling her its not as bad as that, she said 'ays baayad ays whaat?...Exayactly' - we couldn't do anything but laugh. The laughing stopped though when the two French people in front of us put their seats so far back their heads were in our laps. A little bit of consideration wouldn't have gone a miss there. The night went on and on and on but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and thankfully we reached Chiang Mai.

Hopefully we will get better sleep tomorrow night.

Team Domro