Amphawa Floating Market is a Thai amusement
park thrill ride for the stomach, eye sight, and all other human
organs. The brilliant array of sounds, smells, tastes, and
sights, are a mind rushing and energizing display of Thai culture
at it’s finest. In the world of Bangkok that so caters
to the Western tourist, Amphawa is still very much a local Thai
oriented market. It can be a relief to know that everything
displayed is not just a show to please foreigners, but more to
enthrall Bangkok residents on a weekend outing.
The sleepy canal in the town of Samut Songkhram, Thailand, is
revved into full gear on the weekends to become the utopian Amphawa
Floating Market. It is dotted with boutiques selling clothes,
restaurants serving eloquent treats, woks producing unworldly
aromas, and people baby stepping from stall to stall, following
their noses or lust of shopping. Floating in the canal are
numerous wooden boats all weighted down with food and produce,
propane tanks, and all other cooking accessories necessary for a
self sufficient boat bobbing eatery. Each boat owner proudly
specializes in their own particular Thai food and delivers an
immaculate dish right off the wake. Browsing the colorful and
artistic scene of helter-skelter is like being part of a modern
ready-made piece of artwork or a drama that was well rehearsed.
One of the most interesting things to watch at Amphawa Floating
Market is the movement of food and money from boat vendor to
server, then to customers, and vice versa. The boaters who
happen to be jammed in the middle or on the outer edges of the
heavenly floating blob are forced to use a lengthy bamboo pole with
a plate attached to the end. This genius pole and
plate device is used to deliver food as well as bring back the
earnings.
By the way, don’t forget to sing a bone chilling, window
breaking, karaoke track at one of the stations set up along the
canal to the hundreds of unfortunate listeners.
