Postcards from Thailand

For many tourists to Thailand a floating market is a must-see. Most end up visiting the market at Damnoen Saduak, a terribly over-commercialised tourist trap. Whilst almost all floating markets in Thailand have disappeared – after all, getting about by boat is for most people not part of their daily life in this age of roads, motorcycles, cars and tuk-tuks. However, a few remain, though often touched by the need to attract tourists to keep them sustainable. Two such markets are at Amphawa and Tha Kha, a few kilometres apart from each other in Samut Songkhram province, about 130 km from Bangkok, slightly inland, but very close to the Gulf of Thailand.

Amphawa is by far the better known and more popular of these two markets. At weekends Bangkokians flock in their thousands to shop and to eat here. The seafood is undoubtedly a major draw. It’s not particularly cheap, but it is astoundingly good.

Seafood at Amphawa floating market

There are also some oddities such as a fruit known as “gac” with its stunning colour. It doesn’t have that much taste, and is usually taken crushed as a drink sweetened with honey.

Gac fruit at Amphawa floating market

One sits at low tables alongside the khlong and orders from the vendors in the boats below.

Vendors at Amphawa floating market

In the evening a boat trip to see the fireflies is a “must do”. A two hour trip by longtail boat along the river and canals which surround Amphawa is a steal at 60 Baht (just over a pound) per person. It’s delightful to see the male fireflies in the bushes at the water’s edge flash in sync in an attempt to seduce a passing lady firefly. It’s as if each bush were strung up with Christmas lights. However, the trip is less than tranquil: there are dozens of boats plying the same route with their engines roaring. Some residents, finding the noise unbearable, have taken to spraying the bushes with DDT to kill the fireflies in the hope that the tours would stop. To lose the fireflies would be a great pity, for they are quite magical.

The boat trip also threw in a couple of temples to visit – nothing particularly spectacular or out of the ordinary, though at one there was a large group of young men, and a handful of women, out on a run as part of a drug rehab programme. One young man had no shoes on and was in very obvious pain. I wondered what his story was. Was the shoelessness punishment? Could he not afford shoes? Had they been lost or stolen? Whatever the background story, it struck me as inhumane.

The boat trip also passed a controversial new hotel. To build it a number of traditional wooden houses had to be pulled down, and its scale is totally out of proportion with the surrounding buildings.

Old wooden houses and new hotel at Amphawa

The following day I visited Tha Kha floating market. It’s much smaller than Amphawa barely registers as a tourist attraction. There are perhaps no more than a dozen boats, mostly selling food.

Vendors at Tha Kha floating market

This market isn’t a daily affair, but traditionally assembles four times a month according to the phases of the moon, though recently weekend mornings have been added to the schedule to draw in tourists. The food here was ridiculously cheap, with most dishes being around 20-25 Baht – less than 50 pence.

Preparing food at Tha Kha floating market

I enjoyed a thin omelette stuffed with beansprouts, grated coconut, peanuts, dried shrimp and a few other bits and pieces. The banana blossom salad, however, was rather too much on the spicy side for me – particularly without any rice to tame its fieriness.

Food at Tha Kha floating market

[661]

It’s not known by whom or when Wat Som (or, in English, the Temple of the Citrus Fruit) was established, though from the style of its prang it’s probably from the early Ayutthaya period.

It now sits desolate, unvisited by tourists, its information boards and name plate missing, presumed stolen. However, it has some of the finest remaining stucco work on its prang.

Behind the prang are the remains of a hall …

… with a few forlorn fragments of shattered Buddha figures.

There are also the stumps of a few small chedis. However, excavation in the early 90s revealed that the original floor level is about 2 metres below ground, so the chedi-bases are iceberg-like.

The sandy soil was alive with insects. Bright red beetles scurried everywhere, cicadas filled the trees, and the holes from which they had emerged were clear in the sandy soil. Here are a couple of cicadas enjoying themselves on the side of a tree.

[448]

Going back a hundred years or so Hua Hin was a sleepy fishing village. Then, the then King, King Rama VI, decided to build a summer palace away from the heat of Bangkok. He chose a beautiful location overlooking the sea in spacious grounds

and named his new home Phra Ratchaniwet Maruekkhathaiyawan (พระราชนิเวศน์มฤคทายวัน).

It was built in 1923 and the King first visited the following year.

The palace has three large wooden pavilions on stilts which run parallel to the sea front.

Separate rooms are connected by walkway, with other walkways circuiting around the rooms to allow courtiers and others to move about without disturbing the occupants.

One pavilion was dedicated to the King’s consorts. It’s entrance was guarded by female guards who stood in these niches. The only man allowed to enter was the King himself.

Following the King’s death the palace was abandoned and fell into a state of ruin. It has since been lovingly restored (in the 1970s) to its former glory and is now a popular destination for domestic tourists and for school groups.

Photograph of the interior wasn’t permitted, so there are no photographs from me of the King’s bathroom, with its imported Western porcelain, including a bidet, high flush toilet and enormous bath.

There’s little in the way of furniture in the palace; the King had his furniture transported from Bangkok whenever he visited.

A modest exhibition captured the costumes of the court’s women of the era – all very flapper.

The King didn’t enjoy the palace for long. In fact, he only visited twice; he died in 1925.

[413]

Plern Waan (เพลินวาน) – the name means something like “enjoy yesterday” is – a recreation of an old-style Thai market, with stalls selling old-style goods such as traditional toys, sweets and ice lollies, postcards, nick-nacks and clothing.

There were also places serving “ancient” coffee, which is strong and sweet.

The individual stores and stalls are run independently, but the owner, Pattra Sahawat, vets them to make sure that they’re keeping to the spirt of the place; no Starbucks or McDonalds here.

Like any old-time Thai market, this place has its own radio station.

It’s all rather fake, with astroturf “grass”, concrete boxes fronted with pre-rusted metal panelling and strategically placed old signs.

It’s really the sort of place I feel I should hate. However, I enjoyed myself watching people enjoy themselves – most far too young to have remembered the old markets of this style.

And it seems that the Market is flourishing, because they’re in the process of doubling its size.

This place isn’t on the usual tourist trail. In fact, I didn’t see another pale face in there; though there were a few Japanese and Korean tourists, most of the visitors were Thai

There’s virtually nothing on the Internet about this place in English, and it doesn’t, as far as I know, make it into any English-language guidebook. There is, however, a very modest website about the place in English:

http://www.plearnwan.com/en/home.html

[412]

Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm Rajwaramahaviharn or as it is (mercifully) better known, Wat Pho*, is one of Bangkok’s top tourist attractions, famous for its massive reclining Buddha figure, 46 metres long and 18 metres high. It’s also a very active temple, with a large contingent of monks. Most tourists come away with a standard picture of the face of the Buddha figure – but because the hall is so tight around the Buddha figure, it’s impossible to capture its immenseness.

The Lord Buddha was recognised at birth as an individual of extraordinary destiny, not just because he immediately walked and that lotus flowers sprang from each footprint, but because his feet bore 108 auspicious characteristics. These marks are captured in mother-of-pearl on the soles of the Buddha figure at Wat Pho.

This image is of the back of the Buddha figure’s head, showing the tight curls of his hair – another auspicious sign:

[Curiously enough, despite the iconography which has developed around the Lord Buddha (an iconography itself derived from traditional Brahman teaching), the Lord Buddha was not of extraordinary appearance. According to the Tripitaka (the most authoritative of the Buddhist scriptures in the Theravada tradition), when King Ajātasattu went to meet him the king was unable to distinguish him from the disciples around him. And in another incident, Pukkasāti sat talking to the Lord Buddha for hours before he realised to whom he was talking.]

Before Wat Pho became a temple it was a centre of learning for traditional Thai medicine. This tradition continues. There are various statues showing yoga positions:

and plaques inscribed with medical texts:

The plaques date from the era of King Rama III when the King had the temple restored, starting in 1788 CE. Last year they were recognised by UNESCO.

It would appear that Thai medical wisdom extends to the health of demonesses, too:

There were some strange trees at the temple, with the flowers growing directly out of the trunk:

I was also drawn to this stack of roof tiles:

One way that temples raise money for restoration is by encouraging adherents to pay for a roof tile. In return they can write the name of a loved one on the tile in dedication. Somewhere in Ayutthaya there’s a temple tile with the name of my late father on it.

*For clarification, “Pho” is pronounced with a hard “p” sound, so sounds like the informal word for a chamber pot. Though the Vietnamese dish of noodles in broth is spelled the same way, that word is pronounced more like “fur”, the name being derived from the French “pot-au-feu”.

[393]