While… eating sushi in a remote corner after the grueling ride at The Floating Market I struck a conversation with a pinoy couple also eating sushi in that remote corner. The guy was a family medicine practitioner and his wife was a radiologist in the military, and they were apparently also in Bangkok for some other convention. We shared the same sentiment regarding The Floating Market. Hair disheveled and sweaty as hell, fam med guy said, “Parang impyerno!!!”

Truly, it was parang impyerno, as we realized it was just a ploy to force us into each shop with overpriced merchandise under the blistering sun with no option to run away from the vendor because we were on a river under the mercy of the bangkera. Being cheap customers we didn’t buy anything during the hour-long ordeal. “The novelty wore off 20 minutes ago!” Uni-Horned Beef Jerky Alanis Whore declared as we saw the long stretch of water we still had to ride through, planked by stores and stores and stores and buddhas and stores and stores and buddhas. The bangkera handed us local hats when she noticed we were squinting and whining under the 10 am sun. “No no no!” we cried in unison. After the previous night’s horrific events involving projectile fruits and swindling bullies we’ve always suspected everyone to be trying to rip us off. Safely back on land we met again with our tourist guide who declared with glee, “Next we’re going to a snake farm… by riding a boat through the river!”

Our super deluxe motel room.

We did go to the snake farm….’s gate! Otherwise if we wanted to go in we had to pay more money, because it wasn’t part of the tour package. Apparently the theme of the tour is tour to the gates. We likened it to being toured in San Lorenzo Village, and being told that that is the gate of Enchanted Kingdom. We politely declined the snake farm visit, privy to the irony of its come on slogan, “The Most Exciting Show In the World!”. We sat in a corner for an hour waiting for everyone to finish. After a few more unremarkable stops the tour ended and the four of us trooped to the mall for aircondition waiting for our flight at 12:45 in the morning. In a few hours we were back in the Cancer Institute chemo-ing, having sated our curiosity and more for temples, temples, temples, projectile bananas, temples, temples, people asking for tips, temples, temples.

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