Unconventional Meet-Cute Site: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Are your characters heading down to Southeast Asia for quest or a vacation? Specifically Thailand? Have them visit the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market in Bangkok. Although there are still many floating markets in the country, it is not uncommon to see a merchant paddling down the river selling fruits and vegetables. However, Damnoen Saduak is the most famous floating market in Thailand.

The first time I visited the Damnoen Saduak Floating market, I was very young and the market felt huge to me. It was a lively place full of color and people. At the floating market, you would see vendors sitting in boats paddling down the river selling fruits, vegetables, and flowers along with souvenirs. There are even boats barbecuing skewers of pork. Alongside these vendor boats you will also find tourist rowing down the river experiencing the market front and center.

In my second visit to the floating market, the market felt much smaller than I
remembered. But the crowded waterway filled with row boats and tourist a very much like the pictures found on travel brochures. Although the main market was not like I remembered years ago, I found this experience more fun since my tour guide took us around the “backway” which involved taking a long-tail boat through the neighborhood. This boat ride was different since you actually get to see houses on the riverfront and seeing how to locals live by and off the river. I might have even spotted a local doing their laundry in the river. 

A row of long-tail motor boats.

Having a meet-cute in this scenario maybe a bit more difficult, but I think it would be fun to have your characters get their feet wet. You can decide if you want it to be metaphorically or literally.

• Your main character is a photographer or explorer riding a long-tail boat and catches the eye of another person on another speeding long-tail.  
• A character is admiring the fresh fruits from a floating vendor and happens to pick the same pineapple as another, and the vendor mistakes the pair as a couple when in fact they are two strangers.
• A tourist exploring the floating market is trying to take a “selfie” of the bustling market and a kind handsome/beautiful stranger offers to help.

Unconventional Meet-Cute Site: Great Wall of China

I am a hopeless romantic. Everything I write has some sort of romance in it even if it is just a tiny inkling of romance.

After thinking about all the “meet-cute” scenarios from my favorite books and movies, the locations where the boy and girl usually meet seem quite conventional. Usually, these “meet-cutes” happen in a bar, at a wedding, at a party, at work, at school, a supermarket, etc. These are all very logical locations since these are public locations where people are in a social setting.

But why should “meet-cute” scenarios be limited to social or crowded locations? Exotic locations are also great places to meet people. We just tend not to think of them off the top of our head.

When I visited the Great Wall of China, the main entrance Badaling  was very crowded, so our tour guide took us to the Juyong Guan (Juyong Pass) instead. The bottom of the Wall is always the most crowded because the stairs are quite difficult to climb and most people visiting the Great Wall are sightseers and not hikers, so people tend to climb the first 50 steps, take a picture, and head back down.

I, on the other hand, was much more ambitious and picked one side of the pass to climb and climbed. When I got to the “end”, of the Wall, I found I was the only one there. I was finally able to take a picture of just the Wall and me. But one problem of being alone, I did not have anyone to help me take a picture since I didn't have a tripod with me.

While I wandered around trying to regain my breath for the hike down, a young ambitious fellow American made his up the stairs too. This wasn’t a meet-cute scenario for myself, but he did offer to help me take a picture, and I returned the favor for him. Also it was nice to meet a fellow American at the “top” of the Great Wall.

So now you have an unconventional location for your two characters to meet. Think of the possibilities!

• Your main character has climbed the Great Wall for some soul searching, he asks for a sign and up comes a breathless beauty.
• Someone manages the injured his/her foot after a misstep on the old worn stone steps and is rescued by a Good Samaritan.
• A lone traveler reaches the top and realizes that she needs another pair of hands to take a picture of her and the monument, and she finally musters up enough courage to ask the other lone handsome traveler for aid.