Thursday, August 12, 2010

Sawadeeka Bangkok. Sawadeeka Songkram. 7 August 2010

Saturday 630am
while waiting to board...

Both packed their small bag filled with treasures. Unkindly, I sneaked some of the things out as it was superbly heavy. 
While Hui was coloring, she picked up a brown felt tip pen and told me " This is brown". Later, she picked one up (beige colour one), looked at it for a moment and asked me, "What colour is this? "

You know, I hardly have time(with two kids now) to  'teach' Hui anything compare with En when she was the only child, which is good because I am not supposed to teach but facilitate. I don't help unless she asks for help. And I made that mistake while En was a child. I never teach Hui's colours formally or consciously. And she learnt it on her own. And her natural interest of learning is still burning strong. It 's natural to her. It is part of life. Living is learning and it doesn't has to be in a learning centre.

EnHui were overjoy seeing uncle Vich, our friend, waiting at the exit. The feeling was so overwhelmed for Hui that her expression was utmost funny.





Common sights of Bangkok - traffic jam

electrical cables hanging on top. :) Fortunately, the air wasn't that smoky or polluted. Thanks to the rain.

Off we drove to Ampawa Floating Market!
Left- Lots of salt stalls lined the road to Ampawa.  Right- Uncle Vich & google map. :)

It takes 1.5 hour from highway toll (exclude duration of  travel time in the heavy traffic of Bangkok city to the highway).Unlike other floating markets, Ampawa is an afternoon market that opens from 12pm to 8pm. It's located at Songkram province and mainly catered to the local people and less touristy.
When we arrived, it was raining heavily. Fortunately, both sidewalk along the canal are mostly with shelter.  We were so hungry that we bought whatever street food that was right in front of us.
Left- We don't know what this is.The hawker does't speak English & Vich was looking for parking. 50baht (RM5). Aroy mak (tasty!) Right- Sweet stuffs but we were starving, so we ate them too. 20baht-30baht per box.


Uncle Vich arrived and he ordered lunch for us.  The rice was so fragrant!  EnHui didn't like much of the Thai food. So we finished EnHui's portion as well till we were so FULL and couldn't try others food anymore. 
Sunny side up quail eggs! 

EnHui chose their souvenier, mini bottle stuffed with things made of clay.
Right-  another sort of street food. There are varieties of local food at Ampawa.

The boats are packed with foods and drink. There are shops at both banks of the floating market which can be explored on foot. We explored one side and around 3pm, the crowd had started to build up. En couldn't see much among the tall crowd of people. So we hopped on the boat and tour the mighty Maeklong river. 400baht per boat, and about 50baht per person if you are sharing with others. 

The boatmen will take you to three Wat (temples). I decided to stop at just one, seeing En exhausted and thinking of a puppet show that we needed to watch at night. There are many traditional houses on both banks. We saw some people washing and cooking by the bank. Our boatman went into smaller and narrower canal and we saw more old wooden houses of the village.



Uncle Vich bought a coconut ice-cream that came with nuts and corns. The scoop was a boat-paddle. We got to keep the boat-shaped bowl and wooden paddle. Some men played soccer on the roof of the temple!


A chubby boy, who weigh 60kg and his friends, were friendly, eating and playing by the jetty. The joy and relax manner of the children in a stress-free village is of great admiration.
Left- They jumped into the river without much hesitation.  Right- The spicy food that the boys ate.

Left- The rain stop and a great sky above us. Right- EnHui and their pinwheels.

Aksra Theatre Lakorn Lek, Bangkok
Cock fighting dance in between rod puppet show. I recorded this short clip by mistake.

The rod pupper show at King Power Aksra Theartre was a great one for EnHui. They were so exhausted  when they arrived at the theatre but were zesty when the show began. En loves puppet. Currently, Aksra Theatre is having a promotion where you buy one ticket 400baht and get two free ticket. The ticket expires in October 2010. 

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