Bangkok, Thailand is known for its hospitality, intense nightlife, value for money and most importantly for its extensive variety of culinary delights.

A trip to one of Thailand’s many floating markets will have you belching the virtues of these water-bound, edible playgrounds in between mouthfuls of fresh fruit and tasty treats.

The city’s floating markets aren’t too hard to find as there’s quite a few scattered along the outskirts of town and are well-known to locals and tourists alike. To visit these markets is to gain a proper sense of the realities of everyday Thai living.

The smells, the people, the liveliness, the bargaining and bartering that still occurs today... this is the true Thai lifestyle being played out in small boats at riverside markets.

Taling Chan market is one of three floating markets located within the confines of Bangkok city. Located on a canal linking two major waterways of Bangkok, this popular pilgrimage for produce was started in 1987 with just five bamboo rafts and now operates amongst eleven permanent pontoons.

Taling Chan is a traditional Thai market and caters mostly for locals, therefore there a fewer tourists hanging about and you’re able to gauge just how people have been surviving here for centuries through the art of trading, buying and selling.

Outside the city limits you’ll find a range of floating markets including, Tha Kha floating market in Samut Songkram, Amphawa floating market also in Samut Songkram and Don Wai Floating Market in Nakhon Pathom.

The most popular and pertinent to visit is Damnoen Saduak Floating Market in the Ratchaburi Province. This is where you can snap that perfect picture, find the finest fruits and savour the sweetest aromas known only to visitors who take the time to enjoy this heavenly, yet often gritty experience.

The vivid colours and buzzing atmosphere are only outshone by the traditional outfits and somehow steady boats, packed to their limits with food and fresh produce.

These aren’t just simply buyers markets either. Vendors lining the shoreline set up food carts each day, pandering to the people’s incessant need for meals, snacks and to sample some of the food they’ve just purchased.

Dumplings, fried tofu, fresh fish, rice congee, curry’s, soup’s and mixed noodle dishes are just some of the fare available when you visit Bangkok’s floating markets.

Thailand is full of surprises and entertaining exhibitions, alleyways and avenues of unexplored adventures await... yet it’s the floating markets that will have you coming back again and again to sample a way of life that is unique to South East Asia and so deliciously accessible you’ll hardly be able to refuse a second visit.