We would soon be on our way to Phuket, but we still had one more day in Bangkok and we decided to check out a typical Thai floating market. What could be more exciting than being yelled at in Thai by ladies wearing wide straw hats floating around in wooden canoes trying to flog their coconuts?! No, it’s not a euphemism, and yes, we probably could’ve found something better to do, but these markets used to be the most lively trading posts in Thailand (nowadays most of them have moved ashore for obvious reasons) so we had to check them out.
As we drove up to the floating market, momma decided to share with me the endearing story of her colleague who came to a floating market, accidentally fell into the river, got jaundice and had to be hospitalised. Happy floating! 🙂 I’m not sure if that was supposed to be a warning not to play with the water, not to drink it, or just not to fall into it, but either way it just goes to show how highly my mother thinks of me.
After some quick and very Thai instructions and “security check” we were ready to go. “Get into little boat, then get into big boat, and don’t fall in” (momma wasn’t the only one questioning my common sense here).
At first everything was smooth sailing. We floated past the more stationary market where women were standing on the edge of the river and basically hurling goods at you as you sail past. Sometimes they would literally run along the shore screeching at you in Thai or broken English while you avoid eye contact and pretend to be deeply engaged in admiring the surroundings. We did at one point get guilt-tripped into buying a couple of seriously overpriced magnets in support of the river economy, but overall I think the river folk were pretty pissed off with our lack of purchasing appetite.
A little while into our journey, an incredible phenomenon took place. In scenes reminiscent of the hulk or some transformer movie my mother took the shape of baba Bosa (her mother). Those of you who have met my Bosnian granny can imagine what a frightful and disturbing experience this was for me. The trigger, I think, was when we floated past a man holding a snake.
My grandmother is a strong and fearless women (known as čika Bosa in her village or “Mr. Bosa”), and nothing and no one can scare her. Well, almost nothing. There is one thing she absolutely shits her pants around and that is snakes. What I didn’t realise is that my mother had inherited this phobia. To make matters worse, she wasn’t wearing her glasses so we actually floated right past a man holding a massive boa constrictor. Only when its head was about 20cms from my mum’s face did she actually realise what it was. Now I’ve never attended an exorcism but I’m pretty sure what followed was something of a similar nature. Loud and hysterical screaming, cursing and a wild rocking of the boat ensued, as my mother tried to get away from the shore edge. The Thai boys obviously found it hilarious that this funny white woman was scared of a what was basically a domesticated pet. Safe to say my mum didn’t see the funny side.
After a few deep breathing exercises and some reassuring words from me, she calmed down. We were now approaching the narrow part of the river and the main trading area. In this part of the river the trade was B2B; boat to boat. The traders have little canoes full of stock or food or coconuts etc. and would sell to punters like us who were also floating in their own canoes. You can imagine as far as shopping experiences go, it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare. There were even locals who had mini grills on their (very small) canoes and were grilling satay with one hand, selling to floater-byes with the other hand and using god knows what to actually manoeuvre their canoe (or not). This caused a serious traffic jam in this very narrow little pass where canoes were trying to move left right and centre and bumping into each other from all sides.
Our canoe driver was a sweet, young, smiley Thai boy, who had been making our journey as comfortable as possible so far. However sweet and smiley are not the necessary attributes needed to canoe your way out of a thai river traffic jam. This was a real dog eat dog fight for the little river space left and after a few minutes it was clear that only the most assertive/aggressive canoe drivers would worm their way to the front. Most of the older, more experienced canoe drivers were somehow starting off way behind us and ending up in front of us within a matter of minutes.
Unfortunately, although assertive/aggressive wasn’t our young driver’s style, for his two balkan passengers it was right up our street. And my mother was especially eager to get in some pool time before our flight to Phuket. Now most of you reading will know the golden rule of “don’t f**k with a Bosnian woman on a mission” but if you think that’s bad you clearly haven’t experienced a Bosnian woman on a mission who’s just come face to face with death (in the form of an anaconda).
Like Bruce Banner under emotional stress my mother’s alter ego Bosa again came exploding out and she starting yelling insults at people in serbian left right and centre.
“Šta si sad ti stala tu sa tim kokosom a mi ne možemo da prođemo?!” (“What are you standing there for with those coconuts so we can’t pass?!”)
“Gde ćeš sad ti sa tim velikim čamcem?!” (“Where are you headed now with that big boat?!”)
At one point s**t got so real that momma reached out her hand to push back the canoe passing by our side in a bid to stop it overtaking us. That then pissed off the older canoe driver whose overtaking opportunity she has quashed and then he started yelling in Thai and soon all hell broke loose.
Clearly we weren’t going to be making any new friends here but thankfully we soon made it past the jam and were on our way back to the hotel. We had a nice meal back in the comfort of our luxury hotel (we’d overdone our daily dose of mingling with the common folk) and before you knew it we were on our way to the second part of our adventure- Phuket.
