26/2/08 - The Floating Markets and the Rose Garden.

Sorry Guys for not posting, we didn't have any internet, though I have wrote down my blogs on MS Word. So here we go.......

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Today we had an early start, we woke up and 5 am in the morning, had a quick breakfast, then hopped in a shuttle bus to go to a meeting place for all the tourist.

We then hopped on a bus and started our journey to the floating markets.

We first stopped at a place where they make coconut sugar. We were showed

how they made the sugar.

They also had a market, where I had fun bargaining for items that Kiyana and

Jake wanted.

We then hit the road

again, and on the way we saw salt farms.

What they did was pump sea water into these big trenches, they then leave them for about 5 weeks, or until the water i

s evaporated.

They then take all the salt and send it to salt factories where they purify and

bottle it to be sold.

We passed heaps of these types of farms and I couldn't help but think about how we

make salt, using big

machines that boil the water.

We then parked next to a canal (did you know that Thailand is called the Venice of the

East because of its canals?) and hopped onto a narrow-long boat that could hold up

to 9 people.

We then sped down the narrow canals. One thing that amazed me was how these guys turned the boats. You had to do a full turn before you could start going again.

We then came to the floating markets.

Kiyana was funny, every now and then, she would turn to dad and say, " Its tipping, its tipping!"

We then got down to business, bargaining for the items we wanted. I had got some practice for this, about 4 years ago I went to Fiji on a mission trip. We went to the flea markets that they had there and I got pretty good at bargaining!

Any way, back to Thailand, I brought a wooden Elephant, and a tooth necklace (which I later lost).

We then hopped back on the bus and headed for the first Buddha temple in Thailand. It has a giant standing

Buddha. We got a coca cola ice block, and the

cool thing about these was that they had 2 sticks to hold onto. (you guy might not think its cool, but I do!)

After having a look at the temple, we hopped on the bus headed for the rose gardens and, lunch for that matter!

We arrived at the rose gardens and went to a restaurant that had an all you can eat buffet!

After lunch we went to the main place where they had……………

…………… Elephant riding!!!!!!

We could all get a ride for 50 baht ($1.72).

We all paired up, and when it came to Kiyana and I, I started to get nervous.

We hopped on, and as it turned out, it was really fun. It was very wobbly, but very fun!

We hopped off and went to watch a Thai culture show. We saw a Thai wedding, Thai kick boxing, and Thai fighting skills.

After that we went back to the hotel, and later went to sleep.