Life in Thailand: Amphawa Floating Market: The Best. The Biggest. The Food.

Taking a Thai longboat through the canals of Amphawa

When people visit Bangkok for the first time, they often have a checklist of items to see and experience. Usually this includes the Grand Palace, the newest shopping mall nicely situated on the Chao Phraya River (namely, Icon Siam), possibly some Muay Thai, and a walk around various local street food market. This merely scratches the surface of what the exotic City of Angels in the far away land of Thailand does have to offer, but is reasonable given the limited timeframe afforded by vacation travel. No matter how short the trip, however, Tiger and Bird would like to suggest adding another item to the list: Amphawa, one of the largest floating markets in Thailand. Tuk tuks and tourist-traps will tout other floating markets near the capitol, but if you’re looking for the legit real deal, an authentic market mostly frequented by local Thai people, then Amphawa is the place for you to go.

Amphawa Floating Market (in Thai, ตลาดน้ำอัมพวา) is located about 85km (53mi) to the southwest of central Bangkok, which translates to about a two-hour drive under normal traffic conditions (during rush hour or around Thai holidays, the driving time can potentially be much longer). When you hear the name “floating market”, please remember that a traditional floating market, like Amphawa, is quite old and will consist of many small shops lining small klongs (canals) adjacent to a larger river. Vendors sell their wares in both the shops and in narrow longboats moored in the canals. The Amphawa market is situated around klongs connecting to the adjacent the Mae Klong river.

As a quick side note, the historic railway bridge on which the movie “Bridge over the River Khwae” is based crosses the Mae Klong river further upstream, near its origin in the Kanchanaburi province to Bangkok’s northwest. As a fun fact, the movie mistakenly places the bridge over the nearby, smaller river of Khwae Noi. As a result of the movie’s fame and many tourists visiting the province to see the bridge, the Mae Klong was renamed “Khwae Yai” (which means "big Khwae" river) in the 1960s around the historic bridge, and the original river Khwae was renamed Khwae Noi ("little Khwae" river).

Land-based facilities near the Amphawa floating market, as seen from the river

The side roads around the small town that has grown up around Amphawa hold many small shops, eateries, and hostel-like local motels. When Tiger and Bird drive to Amphawa, we usually park in one of the parking lots nestled inside these small streets (in Thailand, the word street is “soi”, pronounced like “soy” as in soybeans). Make sure you arrive early! As the day progresses, the roads around the market fill up with traffic and finding parking becomes more difficult.

Picture 1. Driving down a small soi while dodging pedestrians and motorbikes. Picture 2. Small restaurant still closed for business. We like to get to the floating market relatively early in the day! Picture 3. One of the many shops that line the klongs.

The klongs are less busy in the early afternoon hours

Amphawa is at its best on the weekend, but has some shops and eateries open most days of the week. The Friday through Sunday hours are from about 8:00 AM until 7:00 PM. Do you want to see the hustle and bustle of vendors moving their wares? Then try to reach the market early in the day. Do you prefer to grab a bite to eat and move through crowded streets around the klongs? Arrive in the afternoon, and perhaps stay until dusk to take a tour on one of the long boats and look for fireflies. In any case, between the heat and the crowds, plan on four to five hours to experience the market before exhaustion begins to set in. And if you do get tired from walking, always remember you can sit down near the klong and enjoy a quick snack! As for Tiger and Bird, we’ve been to this market numerous times, and we now prefer arriving in the afternoon or early evening hours.

Vendor selling pottery to interested passerby

Another vendor selling desserts

Amphawa is really a Thai market. Besides food and snacks are numerous stands for apparel, beauty products, and anything else one could want to buy. However, the central areas of the market, around the major khlongs, have almost exclusively food vendors. Here, shrimp and shellfish are the preferred choice by many Thai people, but there are also noodle shops and many rice dishes available as well. Strong Thai beer – often served in a mug with ice; this is the tropics, after all – is also widely available during mealtime hours.

Customers enjoying grilled prawns dipped in a spicy green sauce made specially for seafood

Grilled seafood is enjoyed by all patrons to the floating markets. Larger longtail boats moor near benches placed on the adjacent sois to sell seafood to customers. The boats typically have a small charcoal grill to prepare the usual mix of prawns (shrimp), octopus, fish, shellfish, and rock lobsters. The prices tend to be slightly elevated (about 200 or 300 baht for a dish) when compared with fish markets near the shore but are better priced than most places in Bangkok!

Picture 1. This vendor is currently preparing Hoy Tod, greasy oyster omelets served with a sweet red sauce. Don’t let the description deter you! They are delicious. Picture 2. Freshly grilled octopus, shrimp, scallops, crab, and rock lobsters. Picture 3. Watching the Chinese radish finish cooking on the griddle.

Picture 1. Several boats are grouped together to offer a better selection of dishes for customers. Picture 2. Another Thai vendor prepares Hoy Tod (oyster omelets). Picture 3. Grilled Asian scallops are commonly eaten with a green-colored “seafood sauce”, which is quite spicy!

Say cheese! A tourist takes a photo of freshly-grilled seafood stacked onto small plates

If you look at the above photo closely, you’ll see the vendor is currently preparing a plate of scallops with a small container of Thai seafood sauce. In Thai, the word sauce is “naam jim”, and so seafood sauce is “naam jim” seafood. When grilled seafood is purchased in Thailand, it will unfailingly come with Thai sweet chili garlic seafood sauce (made of a varying mixture of Thai chilies, fresh garlic cloves, lime juice, fish sauce, and palm sugar). Eating grilled shrimp with Thai seafood sauce should be considered a rite of passage for those wishing to try genuine Thai cuisine. It will be painful but delicious!

For the lunch and dinner hours, the food vendors can become quite busy

Around the lunch hour, crowds will begin to gather and all the food vendors – both in the boats and the small shops onshore – will become quite busy. Tiger and Bird prefer to find their favorite foods and snacks just before this time begins, escaping from the crowds to shop elsewhere over the lunch hours into the middle of the afternoon.

Boat tour around the canals and nearby Mae Klong River

As the early afternoon heat begins to fade and the intense tropical sun begins to wane, boat tours of the canal and the nearby connect Mae Klong River become more popular. Around this time, crowds of people begin to develop around the market as many locals come to eat and shop. As more people begin to arrive, Tiger and Bird highly recommend escaping onto the boats for a refreshing trip on the water. We'll start again from here in our next post!

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Posting schedule changed to once every two months

Due to time constraints, Tiger and Bird will now be posting once every two months instead of monthly. The goal for these posts is to share tips and tricks for tourists traveling around greater Thailand and we hope that you can pick up some ideas for your next vacation from our site!

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Next up, we'll explore the boat trips around Amphawa's canals and the adjacent Mae Klong River!

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Amphawa Floating Market: The Best. The Biggest. The Food.