I’m exhausted. I only had 30 minutes of sleep last night and today was a full day starting at 5:30 am. We had two tours booked for today. The first one was to check out the train market/floating market in Damnoen Saduak and at night a tour of Bangkok in a Tuk Tuk.
Our tour guy came and picked us up from the hotel a little before 6:00 am. I barely had any sleep, but I was surprisingly awake. After getting into the tour van, our driver picked up about ten other tourists on our trip, and we drove about an hour and a half to get to the train market which is an outdoor market where locals sell all sorts of seafood, fruit, merchandise ON the train track. The train would come every hour or so, and all the vendors had to move their awnings and their merchandise off the tracks. They also had everyone move to the side with about 1 foot of cushion between tourists and the train passing.
It was a fun train ride over, but the market itself was congested and reeked heavily of seafood that isn’t properly refrigerated. If you have a weak stomach, this wouldn’t be for you. We stayed for about 45 minutes and then took the van to the floating market. 
We took a “James Bond” speedboat over to the floating market area where we got onto these smaller boats that shimmied us through the canal of vendors hawking us their wares. It seriously felt like being in a sales funnel. We paid money to go on the boat to get sold by an alleyway of hagglers. All the merchandise was the same, so it got old pretty quickly.
The ride itself was unimpressive. We were inhaling smoke from boat engines and being yelled at by vendors trying to push their goods. We ended the floating market portion and went back to the dock where we had a chance to get food and shop a bit. Considering that this is considered the biggest floating market in Bangkok, it was woefully underwhelming. The other floating market I went to was better than this, and even that wasn’t that exciting.
Around 12 pm we headed back on our 1.5 hr ride to the hotel. We arrived around 2 pm and had about 4.5 hours before the next tour began. We were hoping to hit the gym right away so that we didn’t fall asleep, but my drain system in the shower wasn’t working so we had a worker try to fix it. There was an issue with the plumbing, so they moved us up from the 7th floor to the 28th floor. The room floors was an upgrade but the room itself wasn’t as nice as our previous one, but I’m not complaining.
After moving, we hit the gym and got a nice work out in. We got ready and then went to the executive lounge to see what kind of dinner buffet they were serving. The food looked incredible, so I opted to eat quickly before heading out on our Tuk Tuk tour.
I ate quickly and headed downstairs to take the free shuttle the BTS station near the hotel to meet the tour guide at the Thon Krung Buri BTS exit which happens to be the location I’m most familiar with because it was the exit next to the Lighthouse condo I stayed in. We got Jason a Rabbit card (the card to use the BTS) and hopped onboard a crowded train. The busy time for the BTS is from 5-7pm when everyone is getting off from work.
We got to our meeting spot and the tour guide, Phi, gave us some instructions and we were off on our Tuk Tuk’s with four other tourists. We went to taste some snacks, look at some heritage sites, and ate dinner at what we thought was a Michelin star pad thai place but it turns out it was the restaurant right next to us that was the Michelin star. However, the place we ate at was extremely popular and had a 1-hour wait to get in. Because we were with the tour, everything was set up for us beforehand, so we didn’t have to wait in line.
The pad thai was delicious. It was even better because we thought it was the Michelin restaurant only to find out it wasn’t after we finished. Nevertheless, I think “knowing” it was one while eating it made it taste better. Overall, great food.
We were utterly exhausted two hours into the tour it was a 4-hour tour from 7 pm to 11 pm. We finally got back, and I plopped in my bed and took the quickest nap known to man only to wake up and write this blog. Time to shower and properly get some rest. We have a tour tomorrow that starts at 7:30 am and ends at 5 pm. We’ll have some time to check out Bangkok on our own, and then the next day we head over to Chiang Mai.
Off to bed!