The Floating Market... From A River Boat

When I was taking pictures for the first story about the Amphawa Floating Market (posted here two weeks ago) I had no idea that a few days later I'd be in one of the boats I'd photographed, but that's how it turned out. My Thai friend spoke with a boater there who understood he'd make more money as my tour guide for an hour than he would selling stuff along the canal, so we clambered down the steps, into his boat and off we went.

Here below is a view from that first post showing a gathering of boats near a walk-over foot bridge I took about half-way down a set of cement steps...



...and here's a similar view of the same steps from canal level:

In that same July 18th post you also saw a view from that foot bridge of people sitting on the cement canal-side steps, and here are steps from a different angle:

The local boat folks themselves are used to seeing tourists in group tour boats, looking 20Kg heavier than they really are in orange flotation vests as they're herded up and down the canal, but they seemed somewhat surprised to see us in the boat of someone they know and usually park alongside on any other day.  They'd laugh and wave at our "captain" and point at us, chattering back and forth with him.  I think he kind of enjoyed the change in his routine, myself.

OK, so THIS woman wasn't smiling, but I liked the image

It was a treat for me to see the area from a different vantage point, and it was well worth what I probably overpaid the man for getting us around. While we were down there on the canal we continued further along  and stopped for a short while at the wat you see on the left in the photo below. I'll try for that report next time.