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Thailand

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The State Railway trip to the Floating Market

Elsewhere on these pages I have given an account of the State Railway trip to the River Kwai. I have tried the services of this Company again in November 2000, this time to the famous Floating Market.

Every State Railway trip gives you extreme value fore money. On the ticket above you see that this tour costs 260 Baht (November 2000) and if the part on the left hand top would be clearer, you would also be able to see that 100 Baht comes on top of this small amount as the train fee. This humble price includes: -the complete tour, including the services of a trained guide, a boat tour through the floating market, all entrance fees and a very good lunch.
There are two drawbacks: You travel third class, which means hard benches, and the train makes many stops, and sometimes waits unreasonably long! However, you travel with Thai families, who are on a day out, which is an extra attraction. See the right hand side picture above for your train carriage.

Your train leaves early in the morning. For this trip it leaves at 06.30. And it leaves in time. Like on most State Railway trips, your first stop is Nakon Pathom, with its famous Chedi, the largest in Asia. Ads you can see from this picture (above, left) the sun has hardly risen when you arrive there. If you did not have time to get your breakfast, buy some food on the market here. Most passengers of the train do so.
On Nakon Pathom station you are reminded (right hand side picture above) that traveling by train is a real saver... But after all the sign wants to tell you that traveling by train is safer. Well, that seems more logical as an advertisement, as soon as you have figured it out!
Shortly after Nakon Pathom Station you will be transferred into a bus, that will be your carrier for the rest of the day, until you arrive back early in the evening on the same railway station.

As I wrote, your ticket includes a boat trip over the floating market, and that is a real bargain! If you go there alone and you want to make such a trip, you will have to bargain hard for a reasonable price. The trip is very popular with tourists. Here the bargaining has been done already and you don't have to bother about it!
You will get into the boat near the place where the left hand side picture above was made. The right hand side picture was my first impression from within the boat. I believe that this boat tour is the only way to enjoy this famous market properly.

Some more impressions during the boat tour. You will see all kinds of boats in the water and many stalls along the water. All of them want to sell you their goods or food. I am afraid that the normal market is cheaper, but you are on this floating market just once, so...
Especially ingenious are the boats that sell take-away meals. They have everything on board to serve you a hot meal!

After your boat tour you will walk around. And without any doubt you will pass the bridge from where the above pictures were taken. On the right hand side picture you can see that there is a webcam.
Click here to see what the webcam at the Floating Market captures right now!

Finally a wide angle view of the floating market. Visit this market in the morning (if you take an organized trip, you will be there in the morning anyway).
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After your visit to the floating market you will have a very good lunch first, and then you will be taken to an impressive cave (as you can see on the ticket above), where it is unbelievable hot, and where photography is not possible. Nevertheless this part of the trip is very worthwhile too.

Finally you will be brought to a shrine, that did not impress me very much, but the view from there was impressive indeed, as will be apparent from the picture above.

From the shrine, on the next hill, you can also see a very impressive Buddha image. This really was one of the highlights of the day to me.
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You will be brought back to the railway station and will go back to Bangkok by train. Your train will sometimes stop teasingly long, and you will arrive safe, but exhausted, back in Hua Lampong Station.

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Related pages:
Go to the pages about markets in Bangkok

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