The bible (Lonely Planet) suggests that if you want to see the Floating Market at Damnoen Saduak to make your own way there the night before and get up at 7am to see the market without the tourist hoardes on tours from Bangkok...so that's what we did!

The journey turned out to be more complex than we anticipated....isn't it always!? There are 2 buses that go to the town (the 78 which seemed to go every 10 minutes and the 996 that goes every 40) however every time we tried to board a 78 a random thai man refused to let us board it insisting we stay seated and wait for the number 996...meanwhile 4 number 78's passed by....but every time we made a move the man rushed over to make sure we didn't...no idea why!!!

Damnoen Saduak itself turned out to be a little more than a long row of junk shops and car repair shops lining the sides of a 4 lane motorway (not too picturesque) and as there were no restaurants we walked a mile to the Tesco Lotus to buy a hot deli roast chicken for our dinner!!!

In the morning we hired a boat to take us into the floating market, sharing it with a Malaysian Molecular Biology PHD student we'd met called Brian (we tried to look intellectual!) The floating market was interesting - long tail boats steered by elderly Thai ladies in lampshade hats selling fruit and barbecued meat skewers. However it clearly has past its hey day and many of the stall and boats now cater to tourists and sell carved elephants and 'floating market' t-shirts rather than traditional products - we still enjoyed it and as the only foreigners there was a good atmosphere. 0n the way out we passed a whole flotilla of boats carrying coachloads of tourists...thank god we missed them!