At the Floating Market

Once we arrived at the floating market, it was a scene of what appeared to be complete and utter chaos.  But despite the bedlam and pandemonium, everyone seem to have an intuitive sense of where to steer their boat and no collisions occurred.  

The floating market literally teems with boats selling almost anything 

you wish, from grilled meat skewers to fruits and vegetable, from soup 

to deep fried bananas from t-shirts to souvenirs. Of course, the market 

also has places on stilts extended from the river bank where even more vendors ply their wares to all of the tourists who come by.

Other than the "drivers" of the boats and vendors, there are few, if any, local people on the boats.  I wonder why the local people avoid the floating market? Is it because they know the prices here are exorbitant?  Are they actually laughing hysterically at all of the tourists coming for an "authentic Thai experience"?

Hmm, there is a boat on the left of the photo, our boat is on the right of the photo and here comes a third boat in between us. Being "muy Macho", I did not flinch from what looked like a certain collision.  Instead, I simply recited Christian prayers, Buddhist chants, and silent appeals to the Cosmic Consciousness, all at the same time. My multi-faceted appeals must have worked as disaster was averted.

Here we are in the midst of more boats  You can see the engine of one of the many tourist boats partly out of the water in the right center.  As we were in "Deluxe" class, our boat had an actual motor. Tourists who opted for "Steerage" class were in boats with only one person rowing them about the river and the floating market.  :-)

If you wanted to purchase something from either the shore or a distant boat, they would extend it to you in a bag on a long pole.  You can see the woman attaching the bag with our purchase of deep fried bananas onto the pole in the center of the photo. After you retrieved your items, you would place the payment into the bag and the vendor would then pull the long pole back.