Floating Market, Concert, Temple and Park

I decided to go to another concert in the neighboring providence of Ratchaburi. I booked a room for 3 nights and hopped on the motorcycle for the hour and half ride down to the city.

I didn't really understanding what was going on in the city or where the concert would take place. I had 2 different places marked on my map and decided I would try and find the correct location the day before the concert. The first place I stopped at on the map was the correct location and the following picture is the bands that will preform over the days of the festival.

The festival has a large number of food vendor and I took a picture of the stand selling bugs to snack on if you are into that sort of thing. There are also some rides for kids and different arcade games. I would compare it to a county fair in the US.

I was staying a lot longer than I needed to for the concert so had time to kill. I had time to play tourist and remove a few pins on my map.

On a recent post I talked about Samut Songkhram Floating Markets and that I still had some pinned on my map that I had not yet marked off. I decided with my time to kill to head to the most well known floating market in Thailand, Damnoen Saduak ตลาดน้ำดำเนินสะดวก.

I had always thought that this floating market was just a big tourist trap and I still think that is true but when I go into a place like this expecting to be disappointed it is often the case I enjoy it. I found it sort of fun watching all the boats crammed into a small area and then it started to rain. I bought a ice coffee and watched the people on the boats getting wet and waited for the rain to pass.

Following is a short video I uploaded to YouTube and a few pictures at the market.

After the rain let up I got on the bike and rode to another floating market I think I got from a youtube channel. I didn't enjoy Ban Phaeo Floating Market ตลาดน้ำบ้านแพ้ว.

Not sure why this is called a floating market. It just seemed to be a market along the river. I did have a good and cheap lunch here but would not recommend this market to anyone playing tourist.

I think I have had Wat Sam Phran วัดสามพราน pinned on my map for as long as I have lived in Thailand. It is in Nakhon Pathom between Bangkok and Kanchanaburi and I have often thought about stopping and seeing this temple but I usually am wanting to get through Bangkok or wore out from the ride through Bangkok and just want to get home.

With it being about 30 minutes away from the market I decided it would be a good day to remove the pin of the snake or dragon winding its way up the pink tower.

I took the elevator to the 16th floor and climbed the 2 floors of steps to the roof. The 10 baht was well worth the cost and not having to wind my way around the tower from within the body of the snake. I did walk down to make sure I didn't miss anything but there was nothing to see inside the snake.

This is a picture of temple next to the pink tower and that I did not even go into and only saw it from the roof.

I believe that this is called a Bodhisattva statue.

These dragons or nagas were guarding the entrance to the parking area.

I made my way back to my hotel after a good day of playing tourist. Rested a bit and then headed out to the concert. It was a good show and I arrived back at my hotel a bit after midnight.

I visited Hin Khao Ngu Park อุทยานหินเขางู on my final day in Ratchaburi.

Too Old for a Mosh Pit

I usually post about travel but if you have watched some of my recent videos you will notice a bit of rock music added to my clips. I enjoy some heavy music so decided to do something a little bit different and went to a heavy metal music festival in Bangkok called Rock Alarm.

It was a 2 day event over the weekend and my first mistake was going to the event at 11 AM on Saturday morning. Here is the short video I uploaded to YouTube of the first bands I watched, Sisweet, My Chemical Rotee, Saint After Six, Tersa, Akria Kuro and Uppercut.



This is the 2nd short I uploaded with the bands, Bands, Owl Town, Versus, Silence of Genocide, Last Dream and Jimmy Revolt.



This is the last short I uploaded while in Bangkok and the only one of the main bands that preformed on the large stage. This is of the band named Ebola.



I was looking forward to seeing the band after Ebola that was scheduled to play on the main stage and enjoyed the first song and 1/2 of the band Big Ass and then the sky opened up and the rain came down. Most people tried to find a place out of the rain and the band kept playing unit the sound system went out. It appeared the band was still going but without any sound system they stopped at some point. After it seemed like the show would not go on I went into the indoor stage and watched a band there.

They ended up restarting the main stage bands at some point on the smallest stage and I was told the following day that Big Ass played on this little stage. I made it to the small stage for a little while until I decided it was too crowded for me and found a chair and set in the rain a ways away from the small stage and just listened. I was told by someone that the band on stage was Oblivious but I was the oblivious one and found out after I got back home and was looking at my video that I had seen Big Ass on the small stage and didn't know it.

I said I made a mistake getting to the concert at 11 that is because I was tired long before the night's headliner came on stage and went back to the hotel missing the last 2 bands of the night. On Sunday I didn't go until 4 in the afternoon and was able to make it for all the big name bands and stayed till the last song finished at midnight. Most of the bands were a bit heavier metal than what I like but it was still fun and I did avoid all the most pits.

Following is the video I put together with a few pictures and clips of the concert as well as catching the train in Kanchanaburi.

Samut Songkhram Floating Markets

I talked about wanting to visit the Amphawa Floating Market in the post Visiting a Train Market but had still not made it to Amphawa. I watched a YouTuber visiting a floating market recently and made me think about going to the market. I visited Khlong Lat Mayom Floating Market back in 2014 and my thoughts on floating markets has not changed much in 10 years.

Ratchaburi is the provience next to Samut Songkhram provience and the Amphawa Floating Market (ตลาดน้ำอัมพวา). I made the 45 minute ride to the location of the market and even though Google said it opened at 2PM I assumed Google was wrong but is Google ever wrong. In this case Google was correct and the market was in the process of setting up all the stalls and not many visitors. I sort of enjoyed the empty walkways and bridges but if you want the full market experince 10 AM on a Saturday is not the right time to go.

Before leaving Amphawa I captured a short video I found a bit funny. 4 people on a small motorbike.



I enjoy some of OTR Food and History videos on YouTube and thought their video on Floating Markets was really good. I saved the next 2 markets from their video a year ago and just got around to visiting them Saturday.

Tha Kha Floating Market (ตลาดน้ำท่าคา) was a short ride from Amphawa and following are some pictures and a short that I uploaded to YouTube. I think the market was not very busy because now is the rainy season. I only bought a 10 baht leaf of roasted sweet sticky rice with banana and an ice coffee at this market.

I next made the ride to Lak Ha Floating Market (ตลาดน้ำหลักห้า) through rice fields often following trucks loaded down with coconuts. This market had even less people than the last one. I had a bowl of boat noodles and a bottle of water at this market. Following are a few of pictures I took at this market.

I was floating marketed out at this point and made the 2 hour ride back to my home in Kanchanaburi. I still have 3 more floating markets pinned on my phone within 2 hours ride of home but hope it will not take me 10 years to mark them off.

Ratchaburi

I decided to play tourist in Ratchburi for a day. I did the short ride and visited some of the things I had marked on google maps but had not taking the time to visit on my last visit. If you missed my last post on Ratchaburi it is in the post Going Home From Hua Hin

My first stop was at the Ratchaburi National Museum (พิธภัณฑสถานแห่งชาติราชบุรี)

The skeleton of a prehistoric man was found in 1977 at the Khok Phlub site.

This was a Royal Sword. Sorry not a very good picture.

I was driving to my next planned stop when I took a turn at Chedi Hak Temple (เจดีย์หักราชบุรี). I had not planned on stopping here but had seen pictures of it in the museum even if I could not recall the period of time it was built I decided to stop and take a picture.

I had not planned to stop at Wat Aranyikawas (วัดอรัญญิกาวาส) but after seeing some pictures of this temple at the museum I looked it up on the map. It was on my way to see the bats and had some time before dark so it was added to the pland and I stopped for a visit.

I found the pond behind the temple sort of pretty.

My last stop before finding a hotel was to see the Bats at Wat Khao Chong Phran (วัดเขาช่องพราน). I arrived at about 6 PM and wondered around the market that took place in front of the temple and saw everything bats. The street lights were images of bats and a number of signs and statues of bats so I knew I was in the right place. I didn't know if they flew every season of the year and as I found a place to sit and wonder if I came at the right time of year I looked up and saw a black line flowing across the sky. Following is the short video I uploaded to YouTube of the bats.



What I have found on the internet later after watching the bats leaving the cave is that they are Wrinkle-Lipped Bats and fly every night throughout the year rain or shine. Following is the long video and pictures I took while at the temple.





The sky was putting on a show in the other direction that the bats were flying and was the direction where I was going to be looking for a hotel. I got really wet in search of a hotel but I got to see bats.