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Tha Kha Floating Market and Maeklong Railway Market Tour Review

What an amazing month in Thailand! This is visit 22 and still Thailand surprises, delights and amazes, we never run out of new things to do and this morning a day tour from Bangkok was another highlight. We got ourselves a local guide, an expert in his home town to show us around and it was a fantastic day out. We’ve posted before about Amphawa and Damnoen Sudawek floating markets, we spent 2 days staying in Amphawa and exploring the area. This morning we headed back down to Songkhram Province to visit Tha Kha Floating Market and Maeklong Railway, from Bangkok just 76 KM and an hour or so by car in light morning traffic.  Our guide picked us up at our Bangkok hostel ( see it here), took great care of us and brought us home again safely. Being with a local expert from Take Me Tour brought the day to life and greatly enhanced our experience. Take me Tours Review and day tour review for Tha Kla Floating Market and Maeklong Railway Market from Bangkok. We also have a possible discount link for you at the end of the post.

Video of Tha Kha Floating Market Tour From Bangkok

 

Tha Kha Floating Market Bangkok Tour Take me guide
Beautiful Tha Kha Floating Market. Not another tourist in sight when we arrived early with our Take Me Tour local expert guide.

Tha Kha Floating Market Opening Times

Tha Kha floating markets are a weekend-only morning market. The best time to visit Tha Kha floating market is early on Saturday or Sunday mornings. The markets official opening times are currently listed as 6am to 3pm but please double check this for yourselves, public holidays could affect this.

Day Trip to Tha Kha Floating Market From Bangkok

Our guide, Arnon, picked up we 4 bleary eyed travellers from Mile Map Hstel in Bangkok’s Silom district. We’d not had much sleep after a huge travel day and 10 hours on a bus returning from Northern Thailand to Thailand’s capitol city. We really didn’t feel much like doing anything, all 4 of us half asleep and a little grumpy, but once we got to the attractions Arnon had planned for us we all came back to life. Seeing the beauty, tasting the food, having adventures, we all got our travel mojo back and loved that somebody else was doing the work. All we had to do was soak it up. I’ll write separate posts on Tha Kha Market and Maeklong Railway Market as well as adding to our Amphawa

Maeklong Railway Market Guided Tour
Maeklong Railway Market . What times do the trains run? You need a guide for that. You also need to know where it’s safe to stand.

Maeklong From Tha Kha Floating Market

The market is on the tracks. I couldn’t believe it, literally on the tracks. The last time we were in Samut Songkhram to visit Amphawa we’d heard that the trains were no longer running. They are now, and Arnon knew exactly where to take us and at what time.

Flooding Maeklong Railway Market
Flooding at Maeklong Railway Market. Without our guide we would have been paddling.

Our local guide also managed to get us through a flood to the actual Maeklong Railway market which was much appreciated as I really didn’t want to paddle in the murk. If you didn’t know, we were caught up in the Hoi An floods recently, those flood waters were clean and smelled of daisies compared to the soaked streets around Maeklong. Without a local guide we would have been totally stuck and at the mercy of the songtaew drivers who would have known we were totally stuck and adjusted their prices accordingly. We actually saw a market stall holder selling grilled banana on a stick, standing wellington deep in water with a fish circling his boots. Arnon also had some spare hats in the boot of his car which were great for keeping the sun off my lightly toasted kids.

Temple in a tree Amphawa guided tour from Bangkok
Another treasure near Amphawa, the temple in the tree, Wat Bang Kung dates from the Ayuttaya period.

Wat Bang Kung is a fascinating stop in Samut Songkham province and an old one, dating back to the Ayutthaya period. It’s a 5 minute stop an so easy to do by car with a guide.

Day Tours from Bangkok Tha Kha Market and Meklong Railway. Making Coconut Sugar
Our Day tour from Bangkok included a visit to a coconut farm and learning about making coconut sugar. This was really fascinating and without Arnon to explain in English the farmers wouldn’t have been able to communicate with us. ( I’ll write a full post on this, and everything else included in this tour soon.)

Where Having a Local Guide from Take Me Tours was Invaluable

Tha Kha Floating Market boat trip
Cruising the backwaters from Tha Kha floating market. Arnon our local guide found us a boat and took us to a coconut farm. No stress, no hassle, everything explained to us in English.

Other than having local knowledge and being able to answer our questions, our local expert knew to get us on the road at 7am before the traffic became crazy. A Thai long weekend was coming up and half of Bangkok would be on the road and heading to the beaches, at 7am the roads were clear, returning in the early afternoon they were impassable.

Local guide Arnon, our expert and minder from Take me Tour
Local guide Arnon, our expert and minder from Take me Tour

We also ran into difficulties with flooding at Maeklong, without Arnon we would have had to wade through knee deep stinking water to get to the railway market, he managed to find us a songtaew willing to get us through the floods. Can you imagine what non-Thai speaking stranded farangs would have done without a local’s help? We love Thai food and consider ourselves pretty expert, but even we ( my husband was an executive Chef before we became travel bloggers) tasted dishes we’d never experienced at the Tha Kha floating market. Arnon knew the Thai words for various ingredients and using Google translate managed to identify a few things for us. He also sent us along to the best coffee shop ever and procured us a lady with a boat, no hassle, no drama, no rip-off tourist prices. His car was clean, new and comfortable, with 3 working seat belts in the back and we felt far safer than in any taxi. We were certainly more comfortable than in a minibus.  Everything was included in the tour price except whatever food we bought, being with Arnon meant we got local prices, nothing cost us more than 20 Baht.

Thai street food at Tha Kha market Songkram Province. Guided Tour review
Would you have known to try these little glutinous rice wrapped dumplings? They were sweet and filled with peanuts and radish ( so said Google translate and Arnon, so good!)
Visit Maeklong near Bangkok with guide
Of course with a guide, you have somebody to take family photos. Did you ever see a photo of all 4 of us before? It’s rare. Your guide can also tell you that the station is no distance away and the train will be waiting on the tracks for photos before its return.

What Other Day Tours can Take Me Tour Offer?

Take me Tour claim to have the biggest selection of local guided tours in Thailand. They can arrange tours from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and around 50 other Thai cities.  The variety is huge and you can keep your tour personal, flexible and fun. The Thai people are some of the nicest you’ll find and working directly with locals like this with no danger of rip-offs or hassles is a great experience. We think this style of tour works particularly well with kids but check that the vehicle you will be using is OK for little ones. Arnon’s car was large and had good seat belts for 3 people in the back. Take Me Tour also offer limited numbers of tours in Japan. We loved our experience with them and if you’re interested, use our link in the final paragraph to register and collect a discount to use against your first tour. We will certainly try to use them again if we get the chance.

TakeMeTour Review

We were very impressed. It was lovely to take a day tour from Bangkok and be comfortable and well looked after plus being free to do it our way. We could stay longer or skip items, throw in an extra destination or stop by the side of the road, there was no group and no schedule. Another bonus, my sleepy kids could rest comfortably in the car or sit out a temple visit, it was a perfect way to see more in a shorter time. We saw a huge amount in just one day and having Arnon to explain things to us ( and we think we know a lot about Thailand!) was really helpful. I think you can tell prom the photos above what a great day we had. We will be adding more posts on these destinations and experiences. If you’d lik eto try Take Me Tours click through here, by using our link you qualify for a discount against your tour. There are plenty of different tours to choose from, all over Thailand and each arranged by a local expert guide. For more information on travel in Thailand go back to our Thailand travel guide page.

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Paul Vollmer

Tuesday 7th of August 2018

How did you find out about Arnon? Is there a phone number that we can call, to reach him when we come to visit Thailand in a month?

World Travel Family Team

Tuesday 7th of August 2018

via the take me tour website. link in the post.

Dianna

Thursday 28th of December 2017

Sounds and looks amazing!! What were your favorite new and tried-but-true dishes at the market? Do your boys have favorite Thai foods?

Alyson Long for World Travel Family

Friday 29th of December 2017

We rarely eat in markets, I prefer a sit down and a beer in all honesty Dianna. The boys love things like sweet and sour chicken, tom kha gai and pad thai or pad see ew. I'm a curry girl, tofu.