Pat Pat Palm Plantation

On the morning before leaving Amphawa and returning to Bangkok, we stopped in at Pat Pat Project across the road from the floating market.

canals at the palm plantation

This large palm plantation is a project that encourages local farmers to preserve traditional and eco-friendly ways of producing organic products from palm, including palm sugar, soap, and much more.

nice scenery at the plantation

We arrived at just the right time to see a demonstration of palm-sugar making. It's hard work! The palm syrup has to be distilled over fire in three stages, then stirred rapidly with a giant spoon - not so easy for a product with the consistency of thick caramel - before being allowed to cool and solidify into blocks of palm sugar.

palm sugar production

By then it was time for lunch. We headed back to the market for boat noodles, a Thai specialty!

Served in tiny little bowls made from coconuts, you aren't meant to eat just one serving of boat noodles!

While you are eating, you just keep ordering more bowls of different combinations of noodles, broths, and ingredients. There are so many types to try, and each bowl is only 12-30 baht.

boat noodles

As you eat the noodles, you stack your empty bowls off to the side your table. By the end, you have a whole tower of coconut bowls! It's fun, and it's a more traditional Thai lunch.

tower of boat noodle bowls

Then it was time to go back to Bangkok. Instead of taking the train, we just got bus tickets and were back in the city in an hour or so. Going by train was a blast, but it's much longer.

We did, however, pay one last visit to the Umbrella Market, where our train had arrived the day before, to see it from inside the market.

That was a great trip, something nice and relaxing to do to celebrate the end of a school year.

Umbrella Market