Thai Markets

Since we no longer had to wade through the grueling interviews and tantalizing sparks of different places to imagine working and living in, we decided to play tourist. We decided to take off to visit the famous “Floating Market” so named because the market is, well…floating.

We started out visiting a local Thai Market, complete with exotic fruits and a fabulous array of foods prepared on site and ready to eat. While the vast majority of Thai food includes meat or fish, fortunately there are some vegetarian alternatives. The little cakes the woman is baking are tiny spicy breads. Interesting that the same technique is used in Japan to bake small cakes typically with octopus inside.

We’re wandering down the street, checking out other markets when all of a sudden our guide waves to us and starts running down the road. We ran, wondering what in the world is going on. Not only that, right in front of us, we can see a train getting ready to cross the track so we think “yeah, right! why run…we just have to wait”. Well…it turns out the market also spills over into the area around the train track. After all, it’s unused space when the train isn’t using it. When a train just happens to come along, people just pull their fruit and clothing or whatever back (they’re all on carts of various sorts), pull back the covering awning, and wait for the train to pass. Once it’s gone, the awnings go up, goods back to the track and the sales go on.