Although known as the Bangkok Floating Market, the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market is actually located about 100 kilometers southwest of Bangkok, in Ratchaburi province. If, like me, you have seen many photos of people selling lots of colorful fruits and vegetables in the open waters of the canals, then this has been on your list to see while in Bangkok. Although there are many different floating markets to see in Thailand, the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market is the oldest and largest of them.

Unfortunately, all those pretty pictures you’ve seen of the Damnoen Saduak floating market are either a marketing ploy or just a way to make tourists feel better after being ripped off in Thailand’s biggest tourist trap. The truth is that 90% of the merchants in the floating market sell touristy trinkets like carved elephants, Thailand T-shirts, hammocks and of course those straw hats you see the merchants wearing in the market. Most of the merchants are on the banks of the canals and the boat drivers get a cut of the sales, so they stop at all the souvenir shops. You will see people selling fruit and vegetables from their boats, but they are few in number compared to the bargain traps.

Now, I knew all this, and in fact, the scam starts long before it hits the market, but I had other plans. First let me tell you how the scam presents itself. Taxi drivers all over Bangkok have brochures for the floating market and push it out to all the tourists. They will tell you that they will take you there on the metro or outside the metro for 800-1000 baht. You might think it’s a good deal considering the distance from Bangkok, and it is.

Taxi drivers get their money from bribes. Once you’re brought to the area, you’re taken on the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market Speedboat Tour, where the operators meet you in the taxi and give you a bottle of water before telling you the cost of a 2-hour ride around the market. it will cost you 3500-4500 baht per person (over $100). At this point they have you. Chances are you don’t know anything about the market and don’t realize there are other boat operators out there and you’ve come a long way to see it, so you relent and pay.

Knowing all this beforehand, I decided to start my trip to Damnoen Saduak floating in another way. One morning as I was walking through Bangkok a taxi driver spieled at me and I told him I knew the deal but still wanted to go. I needed to go to Pattaya in a few days and I told him that I would use it for that trip too if he could get me a deal, surprisingly he said “fine”. He said that he could pay the subway or 1000 baht and he would charge me 1400 baht to go to Pattaya. He fixed the deal and picked me up at 7am the next day.

You see, I didn’t care for the floating market except to get some of the traditional pictures of the fruit and vegetable merchants selling from their boats. I knew that the two market areas that made up the Damnoen Saduak floating market were a very small part of the canal system, the larger part is where the people live and that was what I wanted to see… and like a box of cookies salty there is a prize hidden in the canals, a beautiful temple that very few tourists from the floating market get to see.

After an hour and a half drive to the floating market, the taxi driver connected me with the owner of a speedboat who would take me through the markets, then through the residential canals and to the temple further back. The boat cost me 800 baht but it was a cheap price to see the markets on my way without stopping at every souvenir shop on the way.

In fact, the two main areas of the floating market were made up of many trinket shops, but there were still great photos of the merchants selling from their boats. I’m told that if you can get to the klongs (canals) before 8am then you’ll have the best setting for photography as that’s when the locals are really paddling selling amongst themselves and there aren’t many tourists around. At 9am the klongs surrounding the markets are packed with boats full of tourists and it is possible for the boats to bump into each other in the crowded lanes.

Once through the market areas we stopped for some coconut soup before heading to the canals residential area which was beautiful. You can see the impact of the floating market on the surrounding area by the new houses being built, some of them very pretty. All the houses had many flowers planted and the owners seemed very proud. Of course, there were also some royal huts with rubbish strewn everywhere, but they were few and far between.

We then went to the Wat at the end of a canal. The Wat itself was very beautiful, but it seemed that certain areas needed to be fixed. I spent more than an hour in the Wat complex and was surprised that I was alone the whole time, no other tourists were to be seen.

Overall it was a great trip for me because I knew what to expect. If you want to visit the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, keep a few things in mind. Arriving early is key to getting the best photos on the market. Plan in advance how you’ll get to the market, whether it’s a hotel tour or a taxi. Motor boats are expensive, but rowing boats will cost you 100-200 baht per hour. Keep in mind that you will be traveling on these boats with other tourists unless you can make a deal and they also won’t go much further than the markets due to rowing.

If you’re short on time and have plenty of Bangkok attractions to see, give the floating markets a pass because Wat Arun or the Grand Palace are not worth missing. If you still have your heart set on seeing the floating market, take a day trip and visit the famous rose gardens and the Tiger Temple as they are very close.