Hit The Road Chatuchak
Friday morning saw me wide awake and raring to go - kinda. My right knee seems to have gone on strike. Actually it’s been knackered for a while now but of course I’m walking way more here and the fact is I am just a bit knackered.
Anyway today was going to be spent catching up with a good mate and his wife. He lives out here and it was my first chance for a free-flowing conversation since I left London. We caught up on comedy gossip, life news and everything in between. The food was cracking too.
The place we met The Barbican, is run by the guy who runs the venue where mainly British comics perform here. I’ve not done the gig here but the fella that runs it seems like a really top bloke. He gave me a card and said if I needed anything to give him a call. Always handy to have a mate in a big city.
After lunch we parted company and I hopped in a tuk tuk and whizzed off to my favourite temple in Bangkok, Wat Pho. It’s my third visit and the sight of the massive reclining Buddha never fails to fill me with awe. As I’m here out of peak season, I managed to find a smaller temple that was empty apart from two monks praying silently. I plonked myself down and sat for a good while just making sense of things. Gazing up at the enormous gold Buddha, all my cares and fears seemed to subside. His eyes filled me with calm.
When I originally booked this trip I’d planned to go to Vietnam on Saturday, but then I remembered Chatuchak Market was on and changed it to Sunday.
It was raining again on Saturday morning and my inherited cold had fully taken hold, but I wasn’t going to miss the market. It’s a fair old distance, but with the SkyTrain, takes next to no time to reach. The arctic aircon on the train cools you enough to last till you get to the site, then of course you will start sweating again.
I’ve been here twice before and I know I’ve barely scraped the surface, it’s less a market more a city of shopping, but I’ve given it a good go. There’s numerous bargains to be hand and a new development seems to be the proliferation of stalls selling second hand Americana clothing. Faded 501’s, vintage Mickey Mouse t-shirts, and bizarrely hundreds of well worn cowboy boots, so many in fact it looked like a line-dancing convention.
Having bought nothing all week I seemed to be gripped by a spending fever. I came away with t-shirts, tops, a dress, a bag to carry them all and against all wisdom a pair of vintage Dickies dungarees. Don’t ask why, I blame my cold. Needless to say they’re the heaviest item of clothing I have with me, so now I have to wear them to travel. Consequently I am rocking a 70’s lesbian/kids’ tv presenter look today!
I managed to last four hours, fortified by a fresh mango smoothie and a delicious latte at a cool little cafe stall, but then the heat, my dodgy knee and the stuffiness in my head sent me back to the hotel to rest up. I’ll be back Chatuchak, I will conquer you!
Anyway today was going to be spent catching up with a good mate and his wife. He lives out here and it was my first chance for a free-flowing conversation since I left London. We caught up on comedy gossip, life news and everything in between. The food was cracking too.
The place we met The Barbican, is run by the guy who runs the venue where mainly British comics perform here. I’ve not done the gig here but the fella that runs it seems like a really top bloke. He gave me a card and said if I needed anything to give him a call. Always handy to have a mate in a big city.
After lunch we parted company and I hopped in a tuk tuk and whizzed off to my favourite temple in Bangkok, Wat Pho. It’s my third visit and the sight of the massive reclining Buddha never fails to fill me with awe. As I’m here out of peak season, I managed to find a smaller temple that was empty apart from two monks praying silently. I plonked myself down and sat for a good while just making sense of things. Gazing up at the enormous gold Buddha, all my cares and fears seemed to subside. His eyes filled me with calm.
When I originally booked this trip I’d planned to go to Vietnam on Saturday, but then I remembered Chatuchak Market was on and changed it to Sunday.
It was raining again on Saturday morning and my inherited cold had fully taken hold, but I wasn’t going to miss the market. It’s a fair old distance, but with the SkyTrain, takes next to no time to reach. The arctic aircon on the train cools you enough to last till you get to the site, then of course you will start sweating again.
I’ve been here twice before and I know I’ve barely scraped the surface, it’s less a market more a city of shopping, but I’ve given it a good go. There’s numerous bargains to be hand and a new development seems to be the proliferation of stalls selling second hand Americana clothing. Faded 501’s, vintage Mickey Mouse t-shirts, and bizarrely hundreds of well worn cowboy boots, so many in fact it looked like a line-dancing convention.
Having bought nothing all week I seemed to be gripped by a spending fever. I came away with t-shirts, tops, a dress, a bag to carry them all and against all wisdom a pair of vintage Dickies dungarees. Don’t ask why, I blame my cold. Needless to say they’re the heaviest item of clothing I have with me, so now I have to wear them to travel. Consequently I am rocking a 70’s lesbian/kids’ tv presenter look today!
I managed to last four hours, fortified by a fresh mango smoothie and a delicious latte at a cool little cafe stall, but then the heat, my dodgy knee and the stuffiness in my head sent me back to the hotel to rest up. I’ll be back Chatuchak, I will conquer you!
Labels: Travel
posted by JoJo Smith at Sunday, October 09, 2011
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