Rolled out of the house at 1pm, headed to the heart of the city on the king's birthday. Everyone is festooned in gold, my favorite gold celebratory shirt is the golden sponge bob square pants. I see at least 10 of those through out the day. We head out on the BTS and take it's intersection with the underground train. I decide to make an independent move and try buying the token without assistance and don't read the Thai that says you have to pick your destination before entering the coins. There are coins stuck in the machine, a line is forming behind me, and I can't get the damn thing out.
Yaowarat
I have a meltdown. I start blaming Aaron for the machine not working, for not being psychic, for my present misery. On the train, I spend the next 10 minutes deep breathing, re-examining my goals for the day, and emerge onto the street in front of the old train station ready to see some cool shit. Bangkok delivers, as usual, with China town. It starts with an enormous gate way to Chinatown. At first the streets are fairly normal for Bangkok, lots of traffic and fairly wide. The shops are different though, The herbalist shops have jars of dried sea horses, scorpions, a large variety of roots, and other dried animal parts. Jars of tea fills walls - tiny rolled dark balls, large, loose leaves, sticks, and the more common types too. We purchase a hologram image of the king and his wife set on a gold background and a large bag of tea.
Wat
Lucky gold
Rounding a corner, Aaron leads me down street that is crowded with vendors and I am surrounded by all kinds of Chinese foods and tables crowded with produce. We reach the end of that street to find ourselves in the thick of a market more crowded and tighter than Chotuchok. Young men try to force their scooters and motorbikes through the sudden crush of people, competing with men trying to hand truck swaying stacks of boxes into the market, mothers and daughters stopping to examine a jewelry vendor's wares, soi dogs and cats darting through for scraps, and tables set out in front of shops piled high with goods.
Spices and Teas
Tea Jars
More teas and spices
Produce
We work our way through this dizzying maze, stopping in a hat shop to climb a defunct escalator to the second floor. Hats are pilled high, some spilling out onto the floor. Near the back a blonde woman is parked on the floor with a variety of hat around her taking notes and dictating a large order to the Thai shop keeper to export. Aaron picks up a belt with a buckle decorated with tigers, the center portion is a lighter.
Vespa
Rain shelter
Chinese herb packet preparation
Hats for sale
I'm completely overwhelmed, every nook and cranny of this place is packed. We emerge onto a street full of traffic and dart across to enter yet another tiny street like the last. The crowd is picking up and there are long minutes where we can't move in the crush of people trying to make their way through the market. I find a jewelry shop that carries a brass knuckle necklace hung by a bike chain. I buy it for Melinda. There are walls full of cheap necklaces beside it, mostly a variety of owl pendants. Owls are everywhere. Tee-shirts, bags, bobble heads, necklaces, the owl fad is huge here. Also very popular is the single mustache motif. Pretty much the same mustache, a very curvy and full { shape.
Steamed buns
Solar hat fan
Pile of meat from a ?
You can buy anything here, and a lot of it is being sold by the gross. One shop is just hair clips, another is luggage, umbrella store, shop after shop of costume jewelry, bags, headphones, a wall of wristbands. I'm laughing at some of the goods, and I notice no one else around here laughs out loud. Aaron and I are making fun of some ridiculous good, and I'm in hysterics, tears rolling down my face, my Westerner laugh ringing out to join a million other sounds, but totally unique.
Yum, I think
Ceiling 2 - The dream recall
We find the textiles area and duck into a shop that is floor to ceiling sarongs. Each is carefully folded into a tight rectangle that shows the decorative edge. Thai people are crouched in the piles, attaching stickers, refolding them, counting, there has to be eight people in an 8x14 foot shop, each with their own specialized job. One Thai young man is texting on his phone while two girls tease him. He's smiling broadly when one of the older women that run the shop gets up from her piles of sarongs to take the phone away and chide him about working. Aaron is sifting through the piles quickly as I slowly turn around, trying to take it all in and pick out one sarong to take home.
Cagey Roofline
We leave with two sarongs each, mine are both some kind of teal, his are men's sarongs in a kind of plaid. Walking the four steps across the street we find a sarong shop that we promise each other we have to come back to and I take a picture of the sign above the entrance as though that will ever help me find this spot in the maze again. The sarongs here are higher end, the women's choices include sarongs for celebrations with gorgeous materials, tiny crystals sewn in, glittering peacock patterns, and pastels.
Drawers
Laiden with bags, we leave the area and walk down a sidewalk filled with people, carts, and the occasional motorbike rider who wants to skip a portion of the intense traffic. Aaron suddenly grabs my arm and pulls me down an alley, it's little Bombay. We're moving around Asia as a microcosm in this neighborhood. Large screen TVs are stacked in the shops and spill out onto the street. $300 for a 42" name brand LCD that has fallen off of the truck. As we walk down this street, there aren't as many vendors on the sidewalk and the shops are now filled with Bollywood movies, or types of incense stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. I pick up a tunic that is highly decorated with indian patterns in blue in white, as thin as any tissue, and only 80 baht, less than $3. Aaron grabs a sarong in orange with blue printed monkey gods. We try to pick out one incense out of hundreds, shaking each box and jamming it in our noses to catch its unique scent. Some smell absolutely terrible to me, all of them smell strongly.
Incensed
The next shop we stop in sells hindu god pendents of all sizes and shapes. Some are clear cases that hold a small statue, others are painted enamel-likenesses of goddesses with tongues out, monkey heads, elephants, gods with as many arms and legs that will fit onto the small space wearing necklaces of heads and holding a weapons in the many hands. We move down the street to a shop that is as loud as it is crowded with brass goods. I walk around the corner of the shop to find a shrine being tended by a group of men ringing gongs and chanting, large bundles of incense filling the small space with clouds of smoke. I take a video as nothing else can quite capture this feast of the senses. It's a terrible video on review, I was nervous and trying not to be disrespectful... Boo.
Gods on necklaces
I'm finally tired and we agree to grab dinner here in little Bombay. We find a restaurant, Mama's, beside a very dirty river moving slowly between the buildings. It's sunset but we're told that the tandoori isn't ready yet. We order a platter of appetizers and wait for the tandoori to be done, drinking two huge beers (against the law on the king's birthday) and admiring the large and complex turbans worn by the men in their section of the restaurant. Aaron tells me to sit on my left hand and use only the nan to scoop out the rich curries and cold, fresh yogurt on our appetizer plate. I excuse myself to find the restroom and it's through two doors and under a tiny staircase, two boys under 14 are taking a pause from serving food and discuss the hand held video game one is holding.
Little Bombay river
An hour later and we leave with our dinner in bags, full on the appetizers. It's night now and we're making our way to the water taxi. We end up on a large street filled with flower vendors. Huge bags of yellow flowers are everywhere, as are dozens and dozens of roses, and the same, simple orchid arrangements. These flowers are mostly for spiritual uses: festooning a spirit house with strings of the yellow blooms, offering the roses at shrines. As we wind our way towards the river, we encounter a crowd celebrating the king's birthday. A man grabs Aaron's arm and says "Falong, free!". Aaron is handed a bowl of food from a group of women passing them out to an eager crowd, all of the women are beaming. Two ice-filled drinks with brown fruit floating on the top are put into our hands and I'm sucking down cold sweet and slightly smoky drink without handing out any baht. Everyone is joyous here.
roses
???
A short walk later, we emerge on the water taxi platform and make our way on water, sky train, and finally tired feet back to the apartment. I put on the first episode of Game of Thrones and try not to fall asleep for just a few minutes longer.