floating market

pattaya floating market: good prices, not quite as tainted by tourism efforts as i expected, and overall, a very pleasant surprise.



first stop: coconut ice cream. one of my favorites from back home, the thai version is served in a coconut shell with a hearty scooping of peanuts on top, plus an ooey-gooey layer of that oh-so-delicious mystery carnation milk custard product. this can of magic is as much a staple in the thai street food diet as chilis or coconut milk. i’m not going to lie, i was slightly grossed out the first time a can of gooeyness was used as practically ¼ of my iced coffee drink i ordered at the school minimart. but i later notice this can’s role is not exclusively as a coffee sweetener product, but is used as a topping on the popular roti crepe-like pancakes and everything else remotely dessert-oriented you can imagine.


second stop: fresh brew. my love of the excellent thai service -that would never serve a drink without the whole package of glass, ice, and cozy- is taken one step farther. on request that we take our beers with us while we continue meandering and browsing through the stalls, we are made homemade beer cozies. a simple piece of leftover menu paper wrapped around the bottles to keep our hands dry and the beers a teeny bit cooler. how thoughtful!


third stop: fruit. the fresh fruit here is dreamy, and is made even better by the nice way it is always sliced and served with a fresh bamboo skewer, ready for noshing. the only thing that killlls me is the gazillion plastic bags that are insistently wrapped around the purchases…eeeeek!


not so nice: elephants. much to my surprise --after wandering aimlessly through impressive displays of bananas, huge pots of hot toasting almonds, artists delicately replicating scenic photographs, teeny thai women aggressively thai masseuse-ing, and boats serving iced tea and sausages and coconut cakes and fried chicken— we run head-on into two very large elephants. a wave of excitement quickly transforms into a wave of nausea, churning unpleasantly in my tummy with my healthy dinner of ice cream and beer. the only other time i have seen elephants is in their natural habitat of protected wilderness land in south africa. here, on a tiny cement circle with chains on their ankles and visitors paying to hand feed them, these animals look grossly out of place. my friend offers the hopeful comment that they surely take them out and about to play and walk and frolic like free elephants after the market closes up for the night. i nod my head, never wanting to be the one to bust such an optimistic bubble. but instead just feel slightly sick to my stomach, knowing -via comments from thais- that this fantasy of frolicking elephants is hardly the norm for animal treatment around here…