Met some nice people behind the touristic facade. - 04/12/2009 10:27:28 - 18 mm - 1/50 - f/4.5 - ISO 200
6am beep beep beep! The start of our day to float around markets and pet some oversized kittens.
The Damnoen Saduak floating markets was our first stop. It's located west of Bangkok and we reached it after a 1.5hours drive. It was our first tour in Thailand and it's might be our last. We expected to be touristic but not that touristic. The markets where nice because of the good weather and the nice pictures we made. But the whole thing was just to fake. The sole purpose of the market is to get money buy selling overpriced junk. They are not 'real' friendly and it all makes us feel like a herd of wallets. Even the lady at our hotel where we booked the tour seemed to did a great job squeezing the pennies out of our pockets. We found out we paid double than others in our group. It's crazy but you feel you get ripped off every time. Some of the drivers/guides are just plain rude or don't bother telling us anything. You have to pay extra for this and that, you get poor lunch etc etc.
Good thing is that we left the touristic part of the village and wandered around on our own. We met some villagers and had a basic but nice talk with them. We took pictures and they asked to send them over.
After more driving and lunch we had a quick stop at the river Kwai, again no explanation what so ever.
Kanchanaburi was our next stop, a place of monks and tigers. A 500Bath entrance let you go inside and pet the big cats. The thing was Kenzie and I could not take pictures from each other while getting close to the tigers. To bad cause we could have made far better pictures. It was fun though to get close to such a powerful animal. But I got a double feeling about it. If I knew what it was I might not have gone. Those are the animals that demand respect. They are majestic, proud and beautiful. They should not be house kittens. I saw a guard pulling the cats nose hairs and punching the nose...
Once again animals and money, doesn't work.
We got back to Bangkok after a 'long' (not to Australian measures it ain't) 3hour ride. We got dropped of near Khao san Rd. Not even near our hostel in China town. We got 150 dollar and could take the cab back home. What a tour! It was good though cause there was lots going on in that area. The king is having his birthday tomorrow and the streets are filled with music, parades, lights, shows and happy people. It is amazing how they love the old bloke. We had some fun pictures with the locals and returned back to our hotel in good old China Town.
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