Home › Blogs › drew's blog

Last week in Bangkok

Tue 22nd Dec 2009 — drew
image(s): 
Heather with one of her students in Pinklao
Victory Monument Sky Train station
Lad Prao night retro night market
Wat Pho ornate roof ends in the sun
roofs in Wat Pho
Guard at Wat Pho
Buddhas
Roofs in Wat Pho
Drew in Wat Pho
Stupas in Wat Pho
corner detail in Wat Pho
46m reclining golden Buddha
Chao Praya river
Wat Arun
tugs on the river

Our last week in Bangkok was spent finishing off as much work as possible, trying to see a bit more of Bangkok and enjoying our apartment. Having been working different days and times since we got here, we had not had much time to explore the city together and had not seen many of the temples and tourist sites.

Our last weekend saw a bit of market madness – there are lots of different markets in Bangkok catering for anything you could ever want, whenever you want it. One of the biggest is Chatuchak weekend market which is a collection of over 15,000 stalls and sees over 200,000 visitors over the Saturday and Sunday. Although we had been before, we have still only seen a fraction of what it has to offer which seems to be everything including clothes, housewares, puppies and snakes. It is easy to get lost in all the tiny lanes and alleys running between the stalls and if you like something you have to buy it then and there because you will never be able to find the same shop twice. This does not sit well with Heather's endless deliberations but we enjoyed wandering around and managed to get all of our Christmas shopping done fairly painlessly.

On Saturday night, we set out to find a night market that we had heard about just round the corner from our apartment. The Lad-Prao market opens only on a Saturday night and apparently started mainly as a second hand motor market but this has expanded into all second hand goods. It has a car boot market feel to it and stalls selling reflectors for scooters and minibuses alternate with some fantastic vintage clothes and funky retro furniture. Unfortunately, all of the clothes were generally Thai sizes so too small, but some of the furniture especially the lights and clocks were very tempting. If we had been able to fill a container and send it home I think we would have spent quite a few Baht! However, we restrained ourselves and went to try the food at our favourite bar. This was the karaoke bar which we had only been to before for drinks at the end of the night. Experiencing the place sober at the start of the night was a bit of a novelty and made us realise how loud the music and terrible the singing was. However, we managed to order some of our favourite dishes in our best Thai and requested it to be 'spicy' (having been disappointed a few times with food being watered down for westerners palates). With hindsight, in a local bar generally not frequented by tourists, this was maybe a bit of a mistake as when it all arrived, it was the hottest food either of us have ever eaten! It was all still delicious and we managed to finish it off but were both in tears with mouths burning by the end.

On our last day, we decided to do some sight-seeing and went to see Wat Pho temple and took the Chao Praya river taxi to get there. This is a great way to see and travel through the city especially when the roads are jammed and traffic is not moving anywhere. The river is still used a lot with small tug boats slowly hauling huge trains of fully laden barges and lots of Thai long boats with massive engines whizzing up and down. Wat Pho temple is also called the temple of the Golden Buddha as it houses an impressive 46m reclining golden Buddha. The temple complex itself is the oldest and largest in Bangkok and is a beautiful place to explore with lots of colourful stupas and tiled temple roofs with ornate ends that catch the sun. It was a very hot day though and we were not too unhappy to get back on the river boat to catch the cooling breeze.

All too quickly, it was time for a last swim in the pool before packing up our apartment. This made us realise how quickly you accumulate things when you have your own place and we only just managed to squeeze it all into our bags although our broom looks quite comical strapped to the back of Drew's rucksack. Thankfully, we left one of the bags in the store room of the apartments so that we don't have to lug it all around with us. It was sad to say goodbye but we were looking forward to getting to Australia and a family Christmas having been struggling to get into the festive spirit in hot, humid Bangkok with very few familiar faces around.