Wat Takien Floating Market

If you've been put off floating markets by the coach-park versions, this is the antidote. It sits in temple grounds just over the Bangkok boundary in Nonthaburi, with wooden shophouses along the canals and vendors trading from boats. Nobody is performing for cameras here. It's fruit, vegetables, flowers, ready-to-eat Thai food and a bit of local handicraft, sold mostly to people who live nearby.

Go early. Doors open at 7:30am and the first couple of hours are when the produce is freshest and the boats are busiest. By mid-afternoon on a weekday it thins out. My advice is to treat it as a grazing trip rather than a shopping one: buy small, eat as you walk, then spend twenty minutes in the temple grounds, which are half the reason to come. Don't expect souvenirs you can't get elsewhere, and don't expect anyone to speak much English. That's rather the point.