Weekend Market

Day 28 (27/04/08): Bangkok, Thailand

If there is one thing that Bangkok is famous for, its shopping. Being a Sunday, we decided to head off to the Chatuchak weekend market. We braved the local bus system, which is actually rather easy, once you have the inside knowledge of what bus you want and where it actually stops. The bus was pretty crowded, and so I spent a rather uncomfortable 30mins standing like a sardine in a bus with only a few open windows in the Bangkok heat. Charming.

Arriving at the market is a sight to behold. I don't believe there is any other place like it on earth. One estimate puts the number of stalls at over fifteen thousand! Essentially a giant complex, with a large road/walkway running in a loop. However, the stalls are about 10-15 deep off this main road, and so you can get completely lost wandering in the darkened maze of small alleyways and passages between the infinite stalls. Everything is for sale here, although the focus does tend to be on clothes and accessories. Unfortunately, most of the clothes are in the standard Thai size - very small! But almost everything else you could imagine was for sale as well, jewellery, books, shoes, household items, interior decorations, furniture, artwork, pottery, garden tools, plants, pets etc, and of course food. The only thing I bought was food (no suprise there!).

The place is very crowded, completely packed with people, and mostly locals as well. After walking for several hours in the heat, crowd and Bangkok pollution, we had both had enough and manged to catch a very nice air-con bus back. Very civilised, even if I did have to chase the bus down the street before jumping on it!

That was all there really was to the day. The requisite mid-afternoon siesta took place, cheap dinner was acquired off a street stall, and the evening was spent drinking cheap street beer and chatting to other travellers. I actually had quite a late night. I met a bunch of Swedes and Canadians, and we spent the night drinking beers while they talked about ice hockey (apparently its all the Swedes and Canadians do!). I ended up walking back to my room well after the sun had risen!