Amphawa and Railway Markets with Boat Ride Group Tour

The railway market is interesting but timing is important. We did experience the train passing through the market area but many shops were closed during our visit.. The Amphawa Floating Market is over rated. Vendor stalls were on land, we saw no vendors in boats except for a sort of floating kitchen from which we bought our meal…which was not great. We had much better food elsewhere. Our guide said he chose the food vendor because of the low prices…not a good choice for the guests! Bad timing could be the reason we saw no “floating vendor boats”. Tour guides must know this! I don’t think ours did. Could also be the season, although we were there at the beginning of the high season. Bad timing also meant all vendor stalls were either closed or closing during our visit which was a huge disappointment for us because my wife wanted to do some shopping but couldn’t ! The fireflies in the trees and bushes were interesting but not worth the boat ride and the 3hrs+ ride from our hotel in Bangkok, (back and forth) to see. Our tour guides was knowledgeable and friendly but should have known about the importance of good timing. We were initially informed we would be picked up at 12:00 pm, which makes sense as we would be there when everything was open. However we were then informed we would be picked up at 15:30! Which was too late. I had no idea how the bad timing would ruin our visits. To make things worse our driver got lost and we drove around for an extra 30+ minutes looking for the floating market! The tour ended up being a waste of time for us. It was our last visit after a memorable and enjoyable tour of Thailand for three weeks. A real let down and a big disappointment for us! The promotional tour description looked very interesting but the actual experience did not reflect this!

TLDR: this market visit was one of the most expensive excursions we’ve booked so far and everything was closed by the time we arrived due to poor tour planning. Go on a day tour of the market. We were extremely disappointed with this tour. The tour was supposed to be 5 hours long and ended up being well over 8 hours, most of which was spent waiting. To begin with, it was planned to leave during rush hour traffic in Bangkok which delayed us by a couple hours in getting to our first destination. We as tourists didn’t know about the terrible traffic in Bangkok when booking the trip, but the tour operators should have factored this into their planning because once we arrived to the market (just before 7pm) we were told it had closed at 6pm. That being said, even if we had arrived on time, we still wouldn’t have been able to tour/shop the market, because it takes about an hour and a half just to get there and it was the second stop of our tour. The firefly experience was also underwhelming. We were expecting to visit a huge habitat of hundreds of fireflies, and it ended up just being a couple of trees with small groups of them. It was nice to see, but not something I would have paid $80 for or travelled so far to. We were supposed to be home by around 8pm-8:30pm and didn’t even leave the area until after then, causing us to miss an appointment we had for 9pm. Traffic was also terrible on the way back to the city, so ultimately we weren’t dropped off until around 11:45pm. This was extremely frustrating since we had to be up at 5am the next day and were losing sleep over an experience that didn’t deliver. The market seemed really cool and I would have loved to be able to explore more of it / check out the stands. I think it would be worth it to make the visit during the day when it’s still open.

This was not the tour I paid for. We barely made it to see the train go through the market. That same train market was barely open. Maybe 10 stalls were left cleaning up all their goods. Then we went to the floating market and it was also shutting down. We got on a boat to see the fireflies and that kinda cool. But we were riding up and down the river for over an hour. There were some cool temples along the way but it could have been done much faster. It was getting so late. We ended up not getting back to our hotel until 11:30. I will mention that Jim was great. She is the only reason I am giving it two stars. She answered all our questions, took lots of pictures of our group, and was very informative. But over all I would not recommend. Almost 8 hours and no food was available except for the closing down markets with the food that was sitting out all day. Not everyone is comfortable eating that. Jim was the only good part of this tour. I hope it was just an off night.

This was a fun experience. The railway market was unique and the temple covered by the Banyan tree was beautiful. The floating market is more of a night market, but the boat ride to the fireflies was fun. Our only issue was the trip ran much longer than expected. But this was mainly due to traffic. Our guide Jim did a great job.

Our experience on this tour was excellent. The tour was very well organized and allowed you to get up close and personal with two unique markets: the famous Maeklong Railroad Market, where we witnessed vendors pick up their stalls each time the train passes, and the Amphawa Floating Market, full of color, local food and authentic Mood. The night boat ride to see the fireflies was magical, a quiet moment after a day full of activities. Our guide Lín was friendly, very hospitable and gave us interesting information throughout the tour. Ideal for families and those looking for a different cultural experience in Thailand. ⭐ 100% recommended.

We made an excursion from Bangkok to Amphawa, past the temple that got eaten by the forest, and the train market, everything went very well and our guide Lin was very friendly, as was the driver Kevin.

The trip with Lin and Kevin was wonderful, they were very hospitable and kind to us, they have a very good level of English with which they explained everything to us, they helped us with everything they could and with a smile, I definitely recommend this experience with them, thank you for everything

We really loved this tour, only about 1:30h from Bangkok, very informative and our guide was excellent. She took photos for us on every occasion and replied to any of the questions we had.

It was an experience. Experienced an amazing sunset. I was happy we did get to see some fireflies. They were hiding at first but then we found an area full of them which was great. The little shops along the river are great to visit.