Halvdags Damnoen Saduak Floating Market Small Group Tour

Loved the tour with Pattie from Tui Tours. Pattie and his driver picked us up from The Mecure and looked after us all morning, even dropping us back at Terminal 21 later. The market is colourful, vibrant and full of interesting merchandise and characters, a must do when in Bangkok!

Destination people all are excellent. We did three adventures this one I liked the least. You travel about 1.5 hours there with a toilet break where there is another market and how they use coconuts. If you are to go on this tour don’t go to the first set of toilets which are really third world go to the next which is just meters away and i think the tour guy should have said this since we are not used to these types of toilets. There is a lady holding folded paper that she gives you to go to toilet - not enough i you want a number 2!. Don’t flush the paper place it in the bucket next to toilet then you have a big bowl fill of water i with another bowl i it to take the water out and place in toilet to flush what you just did. Once at the floating markets we were motored around in the boat seeing how other people live....then we stopped at a coupe of markets, all the same as the same as the next market. This one they said you could buy street food but when I was in the boat i could see all the people in their boats with their food going to the markets to make the food and noticed all the water in the river was splashing up and in the boat and food so there was no way on this earth i was going to eat any of it! When you are not used to this your body wont like it and you will get ill and end up in the toilet. This was the only food you could eat if you wanted to otherwise you had to wait till you got back to your hotel 1.5 hours later. Destinations people great couldn’t fault them but this tour could be better supply food for the outsiders and stop taking us to the markets selling the same things. No toilet stop on way back no mention to go now somewhere before we go back. I was dieting to go to the toilet and so was another lady in the van as it was we only just made it to her hotel were we both ran to the toilet. I would say to destinations mention a toilet stop and go somewhere else that is clean an hygienic for food.

The tour only offered transportation and a 15 minutes boat ride in the river, the paddle boat is excluded and so everything else. The tour includes a visit to a coconut sugar factory which is more like a store than anything else and not very interesting. Water not provided and bus driver and tour guide not willing to adjust the activities for your preference. We also ask to change our drop off location which was denied. Don’t recommend

The trip is great in that you get to see 2 very famous hotspots for tourism. The railway market is brilliant, ‘Coco’ our guide made sure we were right in the action, centimetres away from the passing train. We then went on to a boat ride through the canal to the flying market, this was a welcome break from the bus and also provided some lovely sights, traditional thai houses on sticks with women washing their feet and hands in the water...beautiful. The floating market however I found disappointing, don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful but after watching travel docs etc I was a little deflated. The majority of the vendors are selling the same cheap tat, there are a few boats selling good food. The coconut ice cream is beautiful and worth the 50bhat. What really made this tour for me was Coco our guide. At first we though ‘oh my god’ but the more you get to know her the more you love her ! She was funny, warm and informative. She made numerous jokes on and off the bus making it easier to stay awake at 7am ! We book this tour through our hotel but feel we did pay for the ease, it was approx £40pp.

Loved seeing the Thai culture of floating market. Tour started earlier than it needed to. Tour took us to coconut farm first (not on the list) to see a 5 minute presentation by our own tour guide (suspicious) then to buy coconut products. Then to floating market. Instead of meeting at 6:20am, we could have met at about 7am and skipped farm. Long boat ride to market fun! But to be honest, floating market is the same product at almost every stand and they don't te you, you have to pay additional to go by boat around the markets (I think this was supposed to be included).