The Famous Ice Cream Floater in Bangkok's Canal

Many of the people who live right on klongs don’t have cars, let alone driveways and streets. They can’t afford cars but they also don’t need them. Instead, they manage perfectly well with their boats. Every house has some kind of pier or platform to which they can tie their boats, and the boats of visitors, and anything that will fit in a boat can be delivered in a boat. In fact, the owner of this business does a roaring trade partly because his customers can get to him so easily.

Yes, those are coffins.

A man with perhaps a more joyful vocation is the Ice Cream Man. I was introduced to him when his little boat putt-putted past the cooking school where I had gone for a class. He has a little bell that he rings to let children know that he is coming, so we heard him as he went by and the cooking school teacher ran to the bottom of her garden to catch him in exactly the same way I used to chase Mr Whippy down the street.



The ice cream is kept in a large tin drum that takes up about twice as much space in the boat as the Ice Cream Man himself.



The ice cream is made with coconut milk and served in small cups with a topping of Sticky Rice. The teacher advised me not to try it because it would probably make me ill, so I had to be satisfied with admiring the lovely presentation.



The Ice Cream Man was happy to pose for a photo but he didn’t want to smile. His tin drum was almost empty; maybe he was contemplating an afternoon spent grating more coconut when really he just wanted to go home to his family and check on the football score.

Story by Trish Smith