We took a trip to the floating markets at Damoen Suduak, 105km southwest of Bangkok. The Lonely Planet describes it as "wooden canoes laden with multicoloured fruit and vegetables paddled by Thai women wearing indigenous clothes and wide brimmed straw hats". After taking a larger boat around some of the larger canals we hopped in a smaller, manually propelled boat so that we could get right into the thick of the mayhem. These canals reminded me of the M50 in Dublin at rush hour. The small boats could barely squeeze past each other and no one was going anywhere fast...which was the perfect pace at which to enjoy the floating markets.
On our way back to Bangkok we stopped off at a place where wood carving was the name of the game. Tables, chairs, screens, cabinets, you name it, these guys had painstakingly carved it. The detail was so intricate that all I could think was "dust collectors on a grand scale". Our final stop was at the gemstone factory where fine pieces of jewellery were made and sold. We were beginning to get the idea that someone was working hard to get the cash out of our pockets. We were herded like cattle around cases of rings, earrings, necklaces, etc, with one pushy clerk to every two customers until we reached the exit and like a diver who has held his breath under water for too long we gasped for air glad to be out of that pressurised environment.
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