Amphawa Floating Market

 Bienvenue à Amphawa

 

Damnoen Saduak's floating market is the best known of all floating markets. It attracts thousands of tourists daily, and extends over many canals. The on-board salesmen are countless and the tourists form an impressive anthill after 9:30 am. It is a market that I know well from having visited it many times in the past.

Amphawa's, for me, was completely unknown until now. Sometimes there are opportunities that come along like this, without us wanting to. It was at the reception desk of the hotel I had booked in the area that I began to hear the first comments. 

My hotel, booked for one night, was directly in Amphawa, only 15 kilometres from Damnoen Saduak. The hotel's friendly receptionist convinced me easily, and I finally decided to change course... direction, the Amphawa market, especially since I was tired of meeting hundreds of unruly and louted Chinese tourists that I was almost certain to find in Damnoen Saduak.

If the Damnoen Saduak market is accessible every day from 8am to noon with thousands of foreign tourists.... the Amphawa market is only accessible on weekends (Friday to Sunday) from 4pm to 10pm with smaller numbers of tourists. I found this market less "commercial", much more "local" I mean with many more Thai visitors. A great experience, a great discovery.

Amphawa has far fewer salesmen's boats, but the atmosphere is much quieter.
On the front of the building, two large stairs leading down to the river.
Small tables have been set up and people come to eat the products purchased directly from street vendors 
It is 5:30 pm, the sun slowly descends to diffuse a more orange light, it's the time when Thai people like to start their meal.
The small restaurants on the upper pier are storming!
On the wharf along the river arm, there are many shops
Some people get their legs massaged on a boat
Others prefer the interior of a living room, open to the view of passers-by.
Unlike Europeans, Asians do not feel any discomfort about being massaged in public....
on this side, the European in general is much more modest...
Some small shops with original ideas...
and these still impressive car engines installed on the "long tails" boats
In these daytime photos, few European tourists....
The countless buses that do their daily excursions leave in the morning and return to their base around 5pm in Bangkok.
In Amphawa, foreign tourists are more likely to be isolated tourists coming on their own and therefore less numerous.
They can stay on site as we did...  

 The night has fallen, the market is in full swing...

On the map