Yesterday we intended to go to Chatuchak weekend market. It is a famous market for being extremely large and almost any guide book will tell you to go along with a list of things to watch out for. Guidebooks also tell you that you can buy "everything" - which is very specific... It's one of the reasons we stayed in Bangkok so long - to be able to go to this market and see it for ourselves.
In doing our research the night before it looked like the Bangkok sky train has a stop right there! The sky train also has a stop by our hotel, so perfect! After our taxi fiasco from palace day, this was a welcome alternative. For those of you who don't know - I LOVE public transportation. I didn't always. I'm pretty sure it was spending 2-3 hours a day in the car in Los Angeles everyday that did it, but finding out I can take the metro in LA somewhere became a very exciting thing (sadly it's not a very extensive system and could almost never take me anywhere I needed to go...
BTS (I'm not sure what it stands for and am too lazy right now to look it up burin preference it's something like "Bangkok Transit System") is AWESOME! It is clean, it is air-conditioned, it is safe (or at least it seemed so and wikitravel had nothing bad to say about it), it has clearly marked instructions! I think it is the first time we'd all been so impressed by something this city has to offer. As Cooper said, "this puts the L to shame..." - it puts most of the ones I've been on to shame. It also gave us some great birds eye views of the city (unlike most metro systems, this one travels above ground - like the monorail at Disneyland!)
BTS symbol.
Alex laying out where we are and where we are going. A transfer is involved!?
And here it comes!
Then we got off the train. We walked through a nice park to get to the market. It was lush and green and happy. The market was not. I can pretty much sum up the market in one words. Crazy. Packed. Everything (yup, just like the guidebooks said). Hot (but really I'm like a broken record saying that - everything in this city is hot). It was wild. And really you can buy everything (although whether or not it's real, as well as quality are quite questionable). But to be more specific, everything includes - plants, pets, new clothing, old clothing, "antiques," furniture, fabrics, shoes, soaps, soaps, more soaps, food, etc etc... If you can think of it it's probably there. I think our least favorite section was the pet one. You just knew those cute little puppies were living and going to continue to live some pretty sad existences. Cooper also finally got his street food. Alex and I were too scared, plus, honestly the thought of eating in that weather? Can't. I should also mention the title for this post. Alex and Cooper had very different styles for getting through the market, and honestly, I don't know what they would have done without me. Alex would just walk and walk and Cooper liked to stop. We almost lost him a few times, but usually I tried to keep my eye out for it. By the end he had to shout out "Cooper stopping!" (yup, coolest code word we could come up with). This happened a lot.
Off we go to Chatuchak (also sometimes called Jatujak, thus the JJ).
There's really no way to photograph the monstrosity of this market. Bit this is a pretty typical view.
Well that looks fairly legit...
And then this is right next to it.
Did I mention you can buy anything here?!
For my fish obsessed dad - yes, there was an extensive aquarium section.
Pretty good to remind ourselves every once in awhile.
Every once in awhile you would pass a really nice, luxurious, heavily air conditioned vendor like this one. It was a pretty crazy juxtaposition.
I'd like to think in the 3 or so hours we spent there that we touched on a lot of the market. Sadly, I realize we didn't. It's just too damn huge. Just walking back to the BTS was a crazy long distance.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped back at the massage joint from yesterday. God did that feel good! I could totally get used to a daily massage...
We relaxed for a bit and then got ready for the hotel's happy hour (2 for 1 drinks!) and the special Cooper birthday dinner. When we got to the lobby and had our first drink in hand it started raining outside. And by rain I mean torrential downpour. Rain that came from all sides. Wind that could lift a person. So intense the power went out (but only for a second). It was very very intense. We began to rethink our plans to leave. Thankfully, after our second drink (remember, two for one!) it had stopped and we made our way to dinner.
You know that lovely smell in the states after a rain? That fresh, happy smell? It is NOT like that here. The smell in Bangkok after a rain is RANK. We walked to dinner basically holding our breaths and decided that maybe the trip back was worth a cab...
Cooper's birthday dinner sponsored by Liz Kennedy! Thanks Liz! We finally got our delicious Thai food. I'd like to have a funny little story about dinner but it was fantastic, the staff couldn't have been friendlier, we were pooped from the day, took a cab home and promptly passed out.
Our dinner location.
Alex and Cooper about to enjoy!
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Even I am getting great positive feedback, and I am only Mom. Emily your violin teacher happily wrote how impressed she was on Facebook and she knew you when you were 8.
ReplyDeleteLove, Mom
THANK YOU for the account of Cooper's birthday! What a wonderful celebration. Your blog is excellent and I feel like can enjoy your trip vicariously because of it!
ReplyDeleteDebbie Hubbell