Venice of Asia — Floating Market
An account of my visit to the floating market in Thailand, Damnoen Saduak
Calling the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, the ‘Venice of Asia’, is a misnomer and by all means an overstatement, as there is no match between the two but the Siamese of yore so named it because, with primitive means of communication in those times, they had limited exposure to the outside world. The Floating Market was also known as the ‘River City’ because the trade in this area was mostly carried out through these water offshoots of the Mae Klong River. Once a normal way of life, floating markets have now become more of a novelty form of entertainment for the visitors turning in to city’s identity marks.
Floating markets are found in three South East Asian countries namely Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam and these, once traditional markets, have assumed the status of cultural heritage in their home countries. Their position now is that of the windmills in Holland that have become obsolete but the Department of Dutch Tourism is maintaining three large ones, on the banks of River Zaan, in working condition for the awareness of the visitors about the 18th century windmill culture that is an identity of the Netherlands. Similarly as a traveler I have found some other structures unique to the countries they happen to be placed in; the pyramids in Egypt and the leaning tower of Pisa or the canal city of Venice in Italy, which can be rightly called the living museums.
There are at least five main floating markets around Bangkok but the most famous is the one situated in Damnoen Saduak district of the central province of Ratchaburi in Thailand, about an hour and a half’s drive from the metropolis. Ratburi means ‘the land of the king’ as King Rama, the founder of the Rama Dynasty in Thailand, was born here. This district, bordering Burma, is full of cultural heritage, beautiful landscape and historical sites. Even the ninety minutes car ride to the floating market was an entertaining journey. Going beyond the city limits, one could see vast paddy fields where the popular produce was being packed in gunny bags for transportation to the market. Thailand is the second largest exporter of rice in the world market. Children were really excited to see the mounds of rice scattered over the place.
As we approached the Damnoen Saduak District the rice paddies gave way to oil palm plantations and coconut groves where trained monkeys are employed for picking up ripe coconut fruit from the tall trees. Thailand has the unique feature of having a ‘Monkey training School’ where this training, known as ‘monkey business’, is imparted to the tamed beasts. This is the only training centre of its kind in the region.
The boat station we were to hire a boat for the trip was somewhat ramshackle in appearance with dusty uncovered parking, stench emitting public lavatories and rickety booking kiosks. The fare of the boat ride that was not fixed had to be chaffered but, in all honesty, it was far from being reasonable. The pier to board the motor boat was also a lot inconvenient, especially for the elderly.
All said and done, once on board the motor boat, it was a great fun. There was a thick plantation of large banana trees and tall coconut palms covering the canal bank and an occasional villa seen in the pristine setting looked attractive. An odd hamlet or two also fell on our route. Reaching the market we saw a lot of commercial activity all over the place. There were rows of shops on the side of the canal but the floating shops with the vendors, attired in colourful dresses and wearing large bamboo hats paddling up and down the water ways, were a novelty to watch. There were a large number of boats carrying the tourists and an equally large fleet of floating shops to cater to the visitors’ needs. A large number of boats were carrying fresh fruits and vegetables, local flowers and handicrafts while floating restaurants prepared sea food and Bar B Q. One popular but strange dish was roasted bananas. It was a very small sized variety and strange to see a fruit being roasted on live fire.
The vendors were attracting the perspective clients to their shops by calling out loudly and even used hooked poles to pull our boats towards them. If we failed to reach a bargain, they pushed away our boat in anger (read ‘dismay’). The origin of floating markets dates back to the times when water transport played an important role in daily life. Most of the water ways have now been filled to make way for the roads. These markets are doing a great service by keeping the old fascinating style traditions alive and the one in Damnoen Saduak district falls in one of the top ten famous places in Thailand. It was a great fun shopping at the Floating Market where we spent over two hours before reaching our last spot, a huge handicraft shop, where we disembarked from the boat to stretch our cramped legs and went around looking for souvenirs. The shop was expensive and we had to be content with our purchases from the boat shops which were certainly better buys. We did not stop at any shop on our way back to the boat terminal and our visit to the floating Market came to an end. This was perhaps the best thing that we had seen on our sojourn to the Buddhist land.
The writer is a Dental Surgeon and can be reached at dsq006@gmail.com
Published by Alisha Khuram
