Amphawa

Ever since I had the opportunity to go to Amphawa floating market with Eddie and Khwan a few months ago, I have wanted to take my wife there to show her the really exotic style of market, and eat some amazing seafood.  Needless to say, when you see shrimp like this on ice, with a grill set up a meter or so away, you know it is bound to be delicious.

We decided to kill some time walking around, and ended up finding random dogs and taking photos of them.

Plus, Danielle was able to find a few cute bugs to take photos of to pass some time.  I think that she was taking a photo of a spider that happened to have a nice rainbow/metallic sheen on the shell.  

My cell phone camera was not quite good enough to catch the spider on the tissues here, but just make a note - in the tropics, always look before you blow your nose...

Now, our main purpose of this trip, besides getting some delicious seafood, was to take a nice tour at night of the market area and the surrounding river system.  I did not know at the time, but we had signed up for the firefly tour, which was very pretty as we have not seen fireflies since we were in Japan. 

The boat trip was lovely, and everything was going well until the motor died...

Then we just started floating with the current.

So there we were, in the middle of the river, at the whim of the river, in a boat that really was not going to be comfortable to be stranded in.  

All I could think about was Apocalypse Now, and not getting off the boat.  I just kept remembering the scene about the tiger.  

It might be a bit off reality, but it is possible in Thailand. 

Plus, snakes...

I really did not want to drift into trees, bushes, swamp, jungle, etc.

I like my nature controlled sometimes, this was one of those times.

So, we floated...

Then we floated some more...

Eventually we made it to a little dock a bit away from the market.  After helping people up the 1+ meter gap, we were free.  Just was time for the long walk home.

Here is a photo of us after we made it off the boat.  Honestly, it was more funny than anything else.  

I am just glad that the tide was flowing into the river and not out into the Gulf at that point.  

If the tide was going the opposite direction, this would have been quite a different story indeed.

Discovering a new market

Decided to go for an impromptu walk in a direction that I had not wandered to during my previous free days.  Wound up walking a kilometer or so towards my workplace and found this gem of a market.  I am also going to guess that either I had something funny tattooed on my face, or they really don't get a lot of random visitors... 

Either way would be fine.

The thing that really gets me about these markets is the vast array of colors.  Fruits and produce in just about every single color imaginable.  I honestly don't think this will ever get old, nor have I seen much like it back in the United States.

Sure, we have our farmer's markets, and there is a lot of cool stuff in them, but they pale in comparison when one is presented with a market that has zero zoning codes and even less worry about the health board shutting them down.  

Want meat? Sure, it is on the table, need to eat some fogs guts?  Why not, next table down.  Don't worry about that meat grinder that is on the ground next to the puddle, all good.  

Oddly enough, I have not gotten really sick yet.  Not sure what is preventing it, perhaps it is just good luck so far.  Time to toughen up the ol' stomach and try and ingest some things that would get a restaurant shut down back home.

As mentioned earlier, frog guts.  I am not sure who would be ordering these, but being as there are plenty of them, I am going to guess they are quite popular...

Yum?

Playing the waiting game...

Had a great time wandering around the different stalls.  The walk back home was pretty uneventful, so I shot some pictures of the surrounding scenery.  I also had the opportunity to meet a dog who felt exactly how I did when confronted with the overbearing sun that exists around 2pm in Thailand.

The Street Market in Salaya, Thailand

Based on the suggestion of a few people, I took my iPhone and shot some video of the various places near my apartment.

I absolutely love the street market here in Salaya.  It is everything that you would want to have near your apartment.  The convenience of being able to get just about any kind of food or beverage within a few minutes of walking is just something that I am not used to from living in the United States.

Sure, we have 7-11's and other convenience stores on every block in the United States, but you cannot walk a minute and find yourself surrounded by a subcontinent worth of food items.  

The other amazing thing is just how much the market can transform.  When I got up this morning at about 5:00 am, the market was starting to come alive.  It had various fruits and coffees for sale, and the breakfast carts were starting to fire up the stoves.  The market tends to lull after about 9am from what I have seen, and really does not get going again until after about 5pm.  Once the night hours hit though, the market really comes to life. 

I am sure that part of it is living in the tropics, where a person wants to get most of the work/shopping/eating done during the cooler hours of the day.  

The market itself is an amazing mix of sound and scent, with music always on in the background, the smell of cooking food mixing in with the general smell of way too many people in too small a space.  There are dogs and cats everywhere, children running around selling items or playing in the corner, and carts of items constantly on the move.  

It is a wonderful place.  

The food is amazing, the atmosphere is inviting, the people are friendly, and the entire place feels safe.  I have only had one time so far where someone tried to take advantage of the fact that I am still new to the currency system.  I have messed up on understanding how much was owed and people have been so friendly and helpful that I am in awe.  I already have my favorite vendors and people smile and wave as they recognize you.  

Market during the daytime

Daytime market

Market at night

Tsukiji Fish Market

Picture an entire neighborhood in your head, now, fill it with a curving cobble-stone floor that arcs out from some unseen central point.  Add curving rows of stalls that spiral around a center that at times is so far away that the curve appears to be a straight line.  Mix in the smells of fish, briny water, and diesel fuel.  If you take whatever you just conjured up in your mind and multiply it by about ten, you can come close to what the Tsukiji Fish Market is actually like.

According to my extensive five-minute research on the Tsukiji Fish Market on Wikipedia, it is not only the biggest fish market in the world, but also one of the biggest whole-sale markets of any type, anywhere.  Let that sink in for just a second.  Damn, that is big!

If it swims in the ocean, legal to pull to land, and somewhat safe to eat, it is at Tsukiji.  We decided to wander the busiest market on the globe, to take pictures, get in the way, and try to understand just how unfathomably big that sucker is, and we were blown away.

Slow Market Day

The market is so big that you need actual scooters to transfer product and people around the arc.  We went during the off-hours, which is closer to lunch time, and of course wandered into places that we were not supposed to visit or see.  We went in right through a loading dock, past signs that probably said something about wearing closed toed shoes and no tourists allowed.  Took pictures near signs that expressly stated  that the market was for selling fish, tourists needed to stay out of the way, and avoid pictures because they slowed down the speed at which the fish was sold to actual customers (non-rubberneckers). 

Motorcycle!

It was huge, the sounds were almost overwhelming.  I am not sure if I can even imagine the speed and drama that must unfold as the market opens at some un-Godly hour when humans are meant to be getting their R.E.M. sleep.  The floor was constantly wet, saws in motion cutting chunks of fish that must have been taken directly from Moby Dick.  The amazing speed in which a salesperson could pull a still-live eel out of a tank, nail it to a board, and render it ready for a plate was like that of a NASCAR pit crew.  You know, if a pit crew prepared sushi.

Delicious

Stopping to take pictures often put you in mortal danger.  You were constantly trying to take a picture, dodge a person shopping, jump out of the way of a speeding motorcycle, while trying to not piss off the shopkeeper who had a knife that seemed to be reminiscent of the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy.

Sushi Chef (Photo Credit 1)

If you are ever able to wake up at some inhumane hour, the market allows about 120 people to watch the auctions for some of the biggest and rarest fish ever pulled out of the oceans.  You would have to be some form of bat-shit crazy to want to be there for it at that hour, but if that is your thing, enjoy!

  5:00am Wake-Up Call?

Photo Credit 1: http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/cloud_480x480.jpg