Wooden Rocket

October 26, 2009

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market Tourist Boat Longtail Implied Motion - Bangkok, Thailand - Daily Travel Photos
(Bangkok, Thailand)
f/8 ▪ 1s ▪ @17mm ▪ ISO100 ▪ Canon 5D ▪ Canon 17-40mm f/4
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A tourist longtail boat navigates at high speeds through the tiniest of canals.

There aren't any special Photoshop effects here. Longtail boats in Thailand use recovered car engines for their forward thrust. As a result, they can reach incredible speeds using their unnecessarily high powered engines. Here, this canal is the entryway to the Damnoen Saduak floating market, what I can only imagine was once not a tourist spectacle of boats selling tacky beer company t-shirts and Chinese-made dinner place mat sets. The market's only saving grace is that it's navigable solely by longtail boats and that floating canoes dispense an incredibly delicious Thai noodle dish called, pad see ewe. The entire day trip from Bangkok to the floating market was overpriced and completely touristy but I loved every minute of it. There's something to be said about being served pad see ewe served from a boat, then eaten in a boat.

thai floating market boat
Chao Praya River Tourist Boat Longtail - Bangkok, Thailand - Daily Travel Photos
(Bangkok, Thailand)
f/3.5 ▪ 1/800s ▪ @200mm ▪ ISO200 ▪ Canon 5D ▪ Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8
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A longtail boat screams down the Chao Praya river in Bangkok.

Here the unnecessarily large engine is visible, jury-rigged to back of the wooden boat. A propeller is attached to a "long tail" metal rod and to steer, the entire rod-engine contraption pivots. Tourists must save all their conversation for after the ride because when those pistons hit their cycle, the word "noisy" doesn't do justice to the exposed engine's cacophanous strokes.

thai longtail boat chao phraya