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On the way, many tour operators will stop off twice.
The first stop, on the side of the road at a salt farm, was surprisingly interesting.
Sea water is drawn inland using windmills, where it is then left to evaporate in shallow fields. The sea salt is then gathered. While not able to wander into the salt fields themselves, tourists can take photos of the workers as they shovel salt into wheelbarrows.
Whatever the original intention of the second stop - Orchid Farm - it is now a pure tourist destination, complete with expensive souvenir shops. Called the Orchid Farm for its rows of orchid plants, sugar-making is the main attraction. The whole process, which strikes visitors as being quite primitive, is done in the open, with tourists freely mingling around.
There are plenty of opportunities for photos and freshly produced sugar can be bought. The sugar itself does have a slight coconut taste and although sweet, is not as sweet as cane sugar.
Damnoen Saduak
The floating market at Damnoen Saduak is a new shopping experience.
The market stalls line both sides of a meandering canal, and shoppers climb into long, thin boats and are paddled around its length. Anyone visiting the floating market will need their best bargaining head on - we were advised to roughly halve the asking price as a starting point for negotiations. Negotiating the price is expected for anything other than food.
And while there, try the food - eating noodle soup while floating down a canal in a tiny boat that gets knocked by other boats is an experience. And expect to see boat rage if you go on a busy day, because in certain parts of the canal there are so many boats chaotically travelling in both directions that tempers among locals at times began to flare.
Close to the floating market is Elephant Village. Tourists can ride an elephant for Baht500 ($14) per person. Each elephant has a master and follows a path through jungle, including water, a trip that takes about 20 minutes. The sanctuary sets out to care for elephants, so they were well treated. There is also a monkey show, although we didn't have time to visit this.
Asked at the end of our holiday what their favourite part was, all three of our children said riding the elephants. And it was my favourite part too, so we recommend this to anyone heading to Thailand for a holiday.
Crocodile show
Another stop on our day trip was the Semphran Elephant and Crocodile zoo. It's not like a zoo in the usual sense of the word, although some aspects of this place did leave us feeling uncomfortable.
There is a crocodile show, where trained Thai's perform tricks with the animals, including putting their arms and head into the crocodiles' mouths. But the crocodiles were pulled around a lot, with sticks used to rile them.
At the show's end, money was thrown to the performers, which they gathered up and dropped into a crocodile's open mouth, before flicking it out with a stick. Overall, and perhaps it was down to our European eyes, we all felt uncomfortable with the treatment the crocodiles received - even our young children commented on the lack of respect the animals were shown.
It was obvious during the elephant show that these animals are revered. Still though, it was a mixture of circus tricks and an educational show, highlighting how elephants were used in days of old.
Semphran was a low point of the day, and one we could happily have given a miss.
Rose garden
Our final visit was to the Rose Garden. A huge slab of land surrounded by lakes and lined with trees and plants, it includes a hotel and buffet lunch facilities. We attended a show looking at Thai culture, and were expecting little from it. Although starting slow, it quickly picked up and was actually pretty entertaining.
It included an exhibition Thai boxing match and sword fights (using real, blunted swords, as our children pointed out afterwards), plus various displays of traditional dance. Although it would have teenagers cringing in parts, for younger children and adults, it was an entertaining show and worth the visit.
Essential to any day trip is the guide and ours was superb. He spoke good English, took the trouble to understand our interests and explained what we were seeing and its significance every step of the way.
While Semphran was a huge disappointment, the floating market and Elephant Village would engage even the surliest of characters and the Rose Garden was a relaxing way to finish a busy day. Highlighting just how much fun was had, on the return trip to Bangkok we had three exhausted, happy children sleeping in the back of the minibus.
See also:
Bangkok tour part 1 - Of temples and taxis
Bangkok tour part 2 - Shop till you drop
Rob Jones, Editorial Director
