Floating Markets and Fighting Monkeys

Ratchaburi Province

I had arranged to meet <girl whose name I still don't know> in Nakhon Pathom at 7 Sunday morning to head down to the floating market at Damnoen Saduak by bus. However, on the way to a party the previous night, a friend had informed me that I was in fact staying in Nakhon Pathom and driving to the market at 6 the next morning. So I called up , got her to show up an hour earlier, and we all sped southward at the crack of dawn.

The guidebooks seemed to universally recommend going ultra-early as the market began at 5 and by mid-morning all the authentic Thai shopping would have been replaced by package tourists from Bangkok. As it turned out, we were several years too late; the entrance to the market was adorned with dozens of Disneyesque signs and parking attendants waved us into a space and charged us a 20 Baht fee. Since the tourists had driven up the prices, Thai buyers stopped showing, and at 7 most sellers were still home in bed; only a few stray fruit boats paddled the empty canals.

We were at a loss as to what to do at this point and started aimlessly driving about the countryside; we found a wat with thousands of big, hungry fish and dumped bread into the writhing waters. When we returned to the market, the scene had changed completely. Dozens of buses had unloaded their human cargo on to a wide variety of paddle and motor boats, and the waters were now packed with these vessels, as well as those weighed down by tall stocks of souvenirs. We rented a traditional paddleboat (8 bucks) and entered the fray; the experience rivaled any traffic jam in Bangkok, and beyond not making any forward progress, we were quite often shoved backwards as the drivers attempted to unravel the elaborate puzzle in which they were immersed.

I realized early on that this approach to shopping didn't favor the consumer; you had to pick out what you wanted and do all necessary negotiations in the brief interval required to speed by the shop; you couldn't act as if you weren't coming back either because the owners all knew you were on a return trip and would have another buying opportunity in just an hour's time. The canals spread out in every direction and you could spend countless hours paddling the maze, but the drivers all followed a set route determined by whatever shops had offered them the highest commissions. As we returned to the loading zone, a new supply of tourists had made it impossible to dock our boat; I wanted to just walk across the bows of the adjoining canoes, but my companions didn't seem particularly thrilled with this idea, so we spent half an hour baking in the sun and contemplating again and again the overpriced drinks and hats in the vendor boat next to us.

Once we eventually escaped, we found that none of us had any inclination as to what else there was to do in the region. Besides a small splotch on the map, my guidebook didn't acknowledge Ratchaburi's existence and my Thai friends had only a passing familiarity with it. We knew there was a cave where millions of bats exited in an impressive black cloud at sunset, but killing off the next 8 hours seemed a considerable challenge.

Our next stop was a wat featuring an extensive shadow puppet museum; this is apparently quite the popular art form in Thailand and I'm told is not at all comparable to the American tradition of sock puppets. 50km down the road, Khao Bin Cave had many impressive chambers but was around 15 degrees warmer than the outside air.

A short way down the road we visited another cave that shall doubtlessly rank among my favorite spots in Thailand. After parking, several children approached us with a stuffed crocodile that we were to rent for 10 Baht and leave on our car to protect it. This apparently made perfect sense to my friends, as it is a well-known fact that monkeys are terrified of stuffed crocodiles. Included in the price of the rental was a bag of peanuts that you could hold (with arm fully extended) while you were savagely attacked by a horde of vicious monkeys. It's hard to relate the sheer number of monkeys living at this cave. They were apparently divided into two warring factions and just as we arrived, an enormous battle ensued over the territory – the two monkey nations moved into formation and for a brief moment, resembled two opposing football teams before kickoff, and then each among them would make a wild leap towards one of the opponents and proceed to savagely tear him apart.

Venturing into the cave itself, we found that at the furthest extremity, a hole in the roof allowed a perfect beam of light to be cast down and illuminate a Buddha image below. This was one of the more amazing sights I have seen, but it didn't lend itself to photography, and after a few brief minutes, the sun had moved and the effect was no more. In one small, dank room, the smell, sound and heat of hundreds of bats was apparent – they darted within inches of our faces as we crept through the dark passageways.

We returned the crocodile and drove onward to a wat on top of a mountain with good views of the surrounding countryside. While we drove, ominous black clouds assemble overhead and by the time we reached the bat cave, a downpour made any mass exodus of bats seem unlikely. So we returned to sunny (yet boring) Nakhon Pathom and from there made our way back to Sampran.

Damnoen Saduak in early morning