Chatachuk Market & Cabbages and Condoms

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Geo: 13.7308, 100.521

We went to breaky at 7:30, Nana and Pa were already there. There was an abundance of food for the fifty odd people who were there; we could get Thai foods like soup and fried rice; cereal, all sorts of juices, bacon, French toast, potatoes, ham, eggs any way or omelettes and the new things we haven't seen before were pancakes and waffles. I had a small and medium pancake, 2 rashers of bacon, yogurt, fruit salad, apple and orange juice (separately) and a piece of French toast, I would never be able to eat all that at home but! (I promise not to bore you about what I ate at this hotel again). Apart from one other Australian guy, we were the only white people that I saw at breakfast, possibly because we're in Chinatown (?).

Mum and I caught a taxi from right outside our hotel to the Chatachuk Market. We went past a huge area with high fences, guards and a massive moat around it, which turned out to be the King's current residence.

It took as a few minutes to work out how to even get into the market after the taxi dropped us off but we sure knew when we were in!

We entered in the fashion section, but it was a fancier section where there was air cons in the shops and price tags on the clothes. I should probably tell you what the market is: the Chatachuk market is the biggest outdoor market in the world covering 35 acres (or 5.7 AFL fields); all the shops are in 3m squared three walled rooms under big sheds that have no walls. In between the shops there are narrow passageways which would be lucky to be a metre wide and they report to have upwards of 200,000 visitors a day!

We covered most of the market, going through the fashion and accessories part, obviously, the food, interior decorations, furniture, craft, kitchen goods, ceramics, material and animals (and possibly more). We went to the toilet at one stage, we paid 2 baht to use old yuck toilets - they were still better than I expected; the toilets were clearly made for Asians as I could see over the walls with no problem - just what I wanted.

The sections of the market in more detail:

- Fashion and accessories: there were fancy clothes, tailor made clothes on the spot, Thai silk, shoes, lingerie, t-shirts, knock-off handbags and hand-made jewellery.

- Food: There was everything from fresh juice (which was AMAZING), ice-cream, fish and chicken to curries

- Interior decorations: you could get huge chandeliers, clay flowers, Buddha statues, tin pots

- Furniture: fountains, elephant statues, life size animal statues, tables, chairs that looked more like thrones

· Craft: There were small paper flowers, paints - everything you could think of - the tiles to make mosaics were very popular.

· Kitchen goods: You could find cutlery, frypans, saucepans, utensils etc. there.

· Ceramics: There were literally 1m tall piles of all sorts of ceramics including cups, mugs, vases and pen holders.

· Material: Everything was there from rope, reams of fabric to strips of ribbon.

· Animals: I must admit I have been looking forward to writing about the animals; before we had even arrived. I was keen to see the animals, not because I'm animal crazy but simply because there is sure to be something that's…weird and that there was! We spent ages walking around trying to find the animal section; we first came across the animal accessories which prepared us for what was yet to come. We only had a quick walk through here but we saw dog shoes, dog clothes; which while is 'normal' it was to another extreme here, there were pyjamas, dance outfits, sporting outfits, outfits that could only resemble prostitutes as well as every other thing you could think of. Other than that you could get collars with like a million diamonds and various other over-the-top items.

All the kittens and puppies we saw were absolutely tiny and gorgeous; for all the wrong reasons. They were all in the heat and none were copping well, a few stalls had wet clothes in the cages with all the animals on top but the way the animals were spread out trying to get cool looked adorable. The owners treated the animals with no respect or love; they held them on strange angles and didn't seem to care one bit about their welfare. As we were leaving the animal section we saw some weird looking animals that were 3cm tall, we had no idea what to say or think when we were told that they were squirrels! Under the 'show' squirrels there were rows of 3cm tall cages with around 200 others – all babies, still with no fur. Mum and I both discussed the numbers, not believing it was real; it's just too crazy! We weren't allowed to take photos of the squirrels.
We made our way through the market out to the road with the motto "keep going straight; it has to end somewhere" which worked; eventually. We caught a taxi directly back to the hotel and sat back for a while recovering from our tiring day. While we were out, Nana and Pa went walking around the hotel area and said they had a good time. Mum, Nana and Pa went for a swim and I sat writing this with my leg in the water to see how I would react to the chlorine, a slight tingle but I'm happy to go in tomorrow; hopefully nothing changes!

At 4:30 we all caught a taxi to Robinsons, near the Manhattan in the pouring rain (our other hotel in Bangkok) to change some money and buy some sim cards before walking across the street to Cabbages and Condoms (a restaurant). We had a short walk around the souvenir shop and made our way up to the second floor of the restaurant. We met Nana and Pa's friends Sandra and Stan (who is normally known as Lee) who worked with Pa at the ABC, their friends Susan and Ted and Kat, who was the tour guide we had on our first trip to Thailand while in Kanchanaburi. For dinner we shared Po Pia Tod (deep-fried roll of vegetables and glass noodles) for an Entrée, Kai Obb Nam Peaung (one whole roasted young mountain chicken bathed in wild honey), Khao Suay (plan steamed rice), Phad Pak Ruam Mit (sautéed mixed vegetables) and Moo Choop Pang Tod Phad Priew Wan (deep fried pork and stir fried vegetables with sweet and sour sauce). The food was very nice.

We caught a taxi back to the hotel - Nana decided it was too far and too hard to take public transport at night. In our room by 11pm.

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Comments

[Lyn]

One of the best eating places in Bangkok,