Amphawa Shenanigans

This weekend Maria, Molly, Kara and I took a day-trip to the Amphawa floating market.  It's not the most photogenic of the floating markets, but it's way less touristy- and you can take multiple forms of transportation to get there.  The journey is half the fun, right?  Well what a journey it was.  Overall, it was a crazy day that seemed a bit like a strange dream.  Did it happen?  I think so!

Transportation:

-Cab.  Skytrain.  2 passenger trains.  Ferry.  2 Song-taews.  Mini-van.  Bus.  Public bus.  Subway.  Klong taxi.  Foot.  

The players:

-The slightly crazed man who told us that he loved us while we were buying these weird Thai empanadas.  He wasn't even the vendor, but just some random guy walking by.

-The man who was hanging on to the back of our song-taew with a head-to-toe denim get-up: jeans shirt, tucked into jeans.  Classy.  And a belt, and long swishy hair.

-The woman who owned the place we ate lunch at escorted us to the train station.  We really only asked where it was, but I guess she wanted to prevent lost Americans wandering around her town. Solution: grab and arm and take us there herself!

-The man who carried a portable fan onto our bus.

-The dude who flashed us.  AWESOME.

-The guesthouse lady who swore that her cat would bite us if we weren't careful.  Do cats really bite people?

-The half-naked child on a tricycle, who was pretending to tow Molly around on another bicycle.

The events:

-We got to sample caramel/onion bread, coconut dessert, and whole, crunchy mini-crabs.

-Molly took out a door knob with her bum while wai-ing.

-We heard "Yeah" by Usher playing alongside a canal, while exploring a market and without a white person in sight.

-Our van got into an accident on the way home after a car swerved in front of us.  Except for a few bruises and some intense whiplash, we were fine, but a taxi and a pick-up were both totaled.

-We then watched the driver smoke a cigarette over a growing puddle of gasoline leaking out from his car engine.  Which he then tried to restart.

-We ate a seafood and pad thai dinner off of boats.

-We found mannequin pieces in an alley.

-Our train went through a market - literally.  They fold up their awnings and remove the boxes of goods when the train came through, but one box of crabs wasn't so lucky...

-We joined a parade with a bunch of Thai school kids, in celebration of the upcoming election.  One of them hugged Molly.

What a day.  Without good spirits, optimism, and a great ability to laugh at ourselves, I guess it could have been a disaster - but we had an awesome time.  Only in Thailand!