Market Day

We’ve just spent the day with I’m International, Artiwood’s largest supplier in Thailand. Our gracious hosts kept us busy with meetings, a factory tour and a few unexpected side trips. The factory is located about two hours west of Bangkok, so our day started early with a hotel pick-up shortly after 6:30am.

Before we got down to business, our hosts took us on a brief sightseeing excursion. By chance, two of Bangkok’s most famous markets, the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market and the Maeklong Railway Market, are located near their factory. Sadly, the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market proved little more than a kitsch tourist venture. However, the railway market proved more authentic despite the selfie-stick-wielding masses (and ‘yes’ the train really does glide past inches from your nose).

The Damnoen Saduak Floating Market sits along the Damnoen Saduak Canal. This 32km arrow-straight waterway was built by order of King Rama IV in 1866-1868 and connects the Mae Klong and Tha Chin Rivers. At the time, roads were few and far between; instead, canals surrounded Bangkok were the main transportation network. 

Along the Damnoen Saduak Canal, local villages have dug more than 200 ancillary canals, many of which host floating markets. Like any market, they acted as a daily gathering place for local traders touting fresh produce, clothing and homeware. However, you access each market stall by water rather than land.

We arrived at the floating market shortly after 8:30am, well before all the minivan tours arrived. As a result, we saw fewer tourists and more locals going about their day. Our hosts hired a traditional flat bottomed longboat, propelled by a friendly man with a short paddle to take us around the market.

We spent an hour gliding silently along canals, watching traders set up shop and catching glimpses of daily life. These days, the stalls are built on concrete platforms that line both sides of the canal. Although every so often, a gap would open, revealing the stallholders’ wooden homes on stilts in the background.

Every morning stall owners pull up a corrugated iron shutter, that doubles as a shade awning, to reveal their tiered displays. We quickly learned that a boat hook suddenly appears if you express an interest in their wares. Then, before you know it, your boat is pulled dockside for a closer look

During our boat ride we stopped at a local coconut sugar distillery to watch two men converting sap of coconut flower buds into a thick crystalline toffee. Apparently coconut sugar is a common sweeter in these parts. We watched them boiling off extracted sap and whisking the resulting toffee-like concentrate with an implement the size of an oar.

The tourist hordes began pulling up as our boat tour finished. This allowed us to capture a few iconic images of the boat-filled waterways from land, without the aquatic jousting that typically accompanies your boat ride. As you can see above, the Damnoen Saduak Canal is an impressive sight, stretching towards the horizon in both directions.

The Maeklong Railway Market was unforgettable. Garry and I were stunned to discover that the market is situated along a track leading into the local railway station. A train arrives and departs the station three times daily. Shortly after leaving the station it traverses a passageway between buildings. The Railway Market is crammed into this narrow gap.

For about 300 metres stalls line the passageway shaded by retractable awnings overhead. Visitors make their way through the market by literally walking along the railway line. Garry and I walked the market’s full length, watching the locals go about their business. Unlike the floating market, souvenirs were few and far between. Instead we saw all manner of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and household goods for sale.

The, at the appointed time, we joined hundreds of others to witness the stalls lifting their awnings as the train glided through the market and into the station. We literally stood inches from the side of the train as its carriages rattled past; an unbelievable experience.

The rest of our day was spent in meetings discussing quality control, safety compliance and product development, followed by a comprehensive factory tour. It’s magic walking among stacks of timber in a warehouse at one end of the complex, and then witnessing finished products undergoing inspection at the other.

Our long day finished with dinner in Bangkok with our host and their family. They’re preparing to launch a new pet toy range. I wonder if we’ve found our next big thing for Artiwood?