mARTin-on-tour.demy travel blog

After a less-than-two-hour sleep, we meet John-Mark, the brother of my friend Marissa. It is the first time that I meet him, it is nice of him to organise a day trip for us together with his aunt Suda and P’Gvad. Our first stop is Phra Pathom Chedi Buddhist, which is located in the outskirt of Bangkok, approximately two hours by car from the city. The Buddhist is known to be the highest stupa in the world. A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics – typically the remains of a Buddha or saint. We take a walk around the Buddhist on this very sunny day. There are some nice architectural details and a garden with blossom trees. We go into a cave tunnel where we get an orange string to tie around our wrist as blessings.
Back into the car, we have some delicious home-made sweetcorn and sticky rice in bamboo from Mark John’s aunt. After a short car journey, we arrive the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market at close to 12pm. We get on a yellow boat driven by a paddle man. We first pass by some local houses, then we reach a canal with a lot of other boats selling things ranging from hot food to hammocks. Some stalls are already closing. I have no idea why they close so early. Along the way, we get some drinks with jelly, fresh coconuts, bananas and grapefruit. It is definitely a fun boat ride.
We find ourselves a restaurant for a full lunch close to the floating market. After lunch, we drive to a country park where there are hundreds of wild monkeys all over the place. We also see some very skinny cows, the skinniest I’ve ever seen. There are also some kids selling bananas and sweetcorn in plastic bags for visitors like us. Mark John gets us many bags to feed the monkeys. After a while, we walk up the hill and the kids carry the bags and follow us too. Some monkeys try to follow us but they stop after about half-way up. Even though it is a bit hot to walk up hill, it is worth to enjoy the breeze and the view.
We drive back to the city for another two hours. After a meal at a Japanese noodle restaurant, we say farewell to them and get ourselves ready for the following day to Koh Samui.