A greeting from KLCC Malaysia

To all my Christian friends, may Santa bring you joy, peace and good health. Christmas is a day that you spend with family and friends.

I hope everyone are enjoying the holiday. Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

The Floating Market- Damnoen Saduak

We went to the floating market Damnoen Saduak in Ratchaburi, situated about 110 kilometres west of Bangkok. It is about two hours drive from the hotel we stayed in Bangkok. We went there almost at noon time because the earlier tour van had some problems and the journey was delayed. We had to wait to get on to another van..

I suggest that you go there early in the morning before 8 o’clock.The place is congested with tourists and boats in the later part of the day. Most tour buses and vans from Bangkok start arriving at about 9 a.m.

We enjoyed a swift long-tail speedboat ride down the Chao Phraya River and networks of khlongs (canals) – the waterways that earned Bangkok its ‘Venice of the East‘ title. You’ll pass orchards, traditional teak houses and local people going about their daily lives.

Finally we reached the floating market where a James Bond movie was filmed many years ago in an exciting chasing scene. This is the best known place where timeless lifestyle of native Thai people can be observed along the canals.

We rented a boat to go around the canal. The price is between 300-400 baht per boat.It’s totally chaotic and colourful, noisy, touristy but great fun

Canals are filled with flat boats laden with all sorts of merchandise paddled by lady vendors ready to stop and bargain with potential customers. You can see the old style and traditional way of selling and buying local Thai hawker goods.

The variety of goods; food and noodle soup, fresh fruits, vegetables, artcrafts, handcrafts. paintings and all sorts of souveniers from these small boats.

These have created a photogenic scenery which captivating most tourists into clicking and clicking.

Many foreign tourists are attracted here. They come from Australia, New Zealand, England, America, Canada and Mexico. We also met some Japanese.

Bangkok Tour

Bangkok is considered to be one of the world’s top tourist hotspots and is currently Asia’s top tourist destination.

Bangkok’s temples are a unique part of the capital’s heart and soul. The temples are not just tourist attractions but also play an important part in Buddhist traditions. Monks live in the temple complexes, wake up around 04:00, attend to prayers and duties and then collect food and necessities from ordinary people on the streets.

I made the biggest mistake of the day. I wanted to visit the country’s most renowned historical venue – Wat Phra Kaew ( inside the Gland Palace). We were not allowed to go in as my son and I were wearing shorts. Take my advice don’t wear shorts if you want to visit this temple in Thailand. Thai temples are sacred places so you must dress appropriately.

The tut tut driver took us to another temple which was quite a distance from the Grand Palace. I saw a high standing Buddha and some foreigners and locals prayed by side of the temple. It has several interesting Buddha images, elevated murals on the walls and lavishly gilded window shutters. In the small museum are old Buddha images and various paintings.

It’s fun to sit in tut tut in the beginning, but we realise later how dangerous it was. The tut tut driver was driving like crazy and was caught by the traffic police. The driver wanted us to share the summon! This incident was a bad experience for us and has somewhat become an unpleasant memory of Bangkok.

In Bangkok, we took a boat ride along the canal to see some of the tourist attraction spots. I got to know that tourists were keen to visit Damnoen Saduak floating market, situated 110 kms west of Bangkok and this led me to take a package tour to visit the outskirt of Bangkok the next day..

We did some more last minute shopping and ended up in a night market Bangkok