living near roads, the floating vendor is to those living by

the water.

Thailand's Central Region is criss-crossed by canals

or 'klongs'. Some of them pass through dense jungle;

others are bordered on both sides by flat rice-paddy fields

as far as the eye can see. Traveling along them by boat,

one will pass many klongside villages, some large, others

tiny. The villagers' only means of getting around is by

water; more often than not there's no road within miles,

and every house has it own boat. The boats are paddled

with a single oar in the stern, to give proper steering

control. All the village children are expert at paddling

them by the age often.

Every house also has its own little wooden landing-

stage with steps leading down to the water, and perhaps a

small covered wooden shelter or pavilion with benches

on either side. Here the housewife, if she feels like a short

break from housework, can sit and wait for the floating

vendor to paddle by. But in any case, all boat vendors

announce their wares in loud and characteristic fashion,

by calling them out and by sounding various types of

horns.

For simple everyday household needs, it isn't neces-

sary to "go shopping". Everything will come to one's

door — or rather, to one's landing-stage. Here's a typical

list of vendors who may come by during the course of a

day along Bangkok's klongs, or in klongside villages in

the depths of the countryside:

From five to six a.m. come boats selling the raw

materials for noodle making — noodles, bean curd, bean

sprouts and so on. Between six and seven there's the

coffee boat, usually paddled by a youngish man with a

stove and larger metal urn of boiling water, into which he

dips a muslin coffee-bag. He also sells bread and 'pa tong-

oh', a kind of Chinese pastry. Although his day starts

early, the coffee-seller may choose to carry on working

until quite late, as people drink coffee all day long.

From seven onwards there's a steady stream of men

selling pork; they only paddle for a couple of hours or so,

as they buy the meat direct from the slaughter-house and

have no refrigerator on their boats. Also active between

tarn' (sliced green papaya mixed with various kinds of

seafood, lime-juice and chillies), ice-cream, 'khao niao

ping — a kind of sweetmeat made from sticky rice — as

well as kitchenware and crockery. Noodles bought from

a boat, incidentally, are considerably cheaper than those

sold at roadside stalls. A floating noodle vendor earns

From nine until midday come the women vendors

in boats piled with green vegetables, garlic, onion,

pepper, dried fish, dried chilies and shrimp paste. They

are mainly country folk who buy their vegetables from

farms near their homes. Meanwhile the other food ven-

dors keep coming — noodles, satay, rice with assorted

curries. Housewives who don't want to cook every day

can buy the curry for dinner.

From one p.m. onwards, other women sell oranges

and bananas, and between five and eight p.m. the 'khao-

tom' (rice-soup) man will appear. After that the klong sees

only ferries, water-taxis and scheduled "bus-boats" that

will drop one at his own landing-stage.

Occasionally a boat passes by selling other things —

bamboo poles, perhaps, or klong jars. And in a klong

near a fishing seaport, a vendor in a powered "long-tail

boat" sells nothing but fresh mussels.

Bangkok's Floating Market at Wat Sai has long been

famous among tourists. But in city and countryside alike,

wherever crowds gather on or near the water there will

probably be a floating market. The reason tourists can

see so many vendors concentrated in a small area at Wat

Sai in the early morning is that they have just collected

the day's wares and are paddling from house to house,

selling them. Some vendors prefer to save their energy by

staying near the market; they know some of their regular

customers will come specially by car to buy from them.

Outside Bangkok, the country's largest floating

market is at Damnern Saduak, about thirty miles south-

east of the city. And on busy upcountry klongs where

tavelers' boats are forced to wait at lock-gates, one

probably will find a mini-floating market doing a brisk

trade. Since the market is established there at the lock-

gates anyway, other customers will come to it by car — if

there's a road.

The women vendors, many of them pretty and

graceful girls, make a beautiful sight in their traditional

Thai farmers' hats woven from bamboo and palm-leaves,

their dark blue long-sleeved blouses and dark or bright-

colored sarongs contrasting with the equally vivid colors

of their wares. The dark blouses are to protect them from

the blazing sun, and they have another advantage —

they don't show the dirt! Even the women's hands are

protected from the sun's fierce rays by flaps attached to

their sleeves. The male vendors wear dark shirts too, but

with short sleeves, and sometimes they even travel bare-

chested, wearing only fishermen's baggy pants.

This traditional costume is still worn by the vendors

in Bangkok's Floating Market, at Damnern Saduak, and

at mini-floating markets upcountry. Nowadays in other

parts of Bangkok and Thonburi, women vendors wear

blouses and sarongs of any color, while men wear colored

sport shirts and three-quarter-length pants.

Many vendors now use powered "long-tail boats,"

depending on the type of goods they sell. This allows

them to travel farther a field and expand their markets;

but with oil prices the way they are today, a vendor must

do some hard-headed arithmetic before throwing his