The Floating Market

Finally, after contemplating for weeks between doing a masters degree or a PhD, it was both relief and more confusion when I got a job offer to work in Bangkok for a year. Confusion in the sense that I was added with one more option to decided on when I was already confused between two earlier and relief because I just decided to go with the third one because I looked at it as my rescue. So I went to the Thai consul in NYC to apply for my visa to Thailand. It was a pretty small office with only couple people in line, which was a relied because I hate waiting, as I am sure many people do. The first thing I noticed in the consul was the poster hanging on the right hand side of the window with a label saying, “The Floating Market.” The poster looked amazing. My best friend who had accompanied me to the consul kept staring at it and said, “Khushbu! You are going to have a blast at BKK. A year will fly by and you won’t even know it.”

I visited the Floating market last weekend and I would like to dedicate my trip to you. I only met you few years ago and since then you have been my companion and my god father for every step I take. I vividly remember us staring, it was romantic. My actual trip may now have been as romantic but it was definitely something that I have seen for the first time in my life. There were two men rowing our boat on smooth canal water. The color of the water was clear black and I could almost feel the bottom of the canal with my eyes. Once we entered the Floating Market, it was like a festival. There were locals selling all kinds of fruits ranging from lychee, mangoes to durian on their narrow wooden boats. The fruits looked so yummy and juicy and reminded me of my own fruit farm at home. I immediately bought a kilo of lychee and mangoes.

As we went deep inside, our boat was stuck in traffic and unfortunately there was a motor boat right in front of us, blowing smoke in our faces, trying to get started and skip the traffic. Then I saw an old lady with a big boiling pot of oil on her boat and she was serving pan cakes, omelets and all kinds of Thai dishes. My head was already spinning from the smoke and the traffic and this boat by the side of me only made things worst. Then I close my eyes and remembered my own roots. I am an Asian and I have been in worst scenarios, for example, I was once stuck on a highway for 6 straight hours and there were no shops around. This thought definitely put me at peace with myself and I was able to enjoy the Floating Market more. As for the headache, I came back and slept for hours that evening and conquered it the next morning.