June 27, 2010

It’s 4:00 AM in Bangkok and some serious thunderstorms are rolling through. Between the storms and the fact that my internal clock thinks it 5:00 PM, I’m wide awake. Guess the rainy season is starting early this year.

One thing I’ve noticed in just two days here – the sun sets early and very quickly. It’s up around 6:00 AM and is hot, hot, hot all day long. It’s full light until around 6:30 and then suddenly completely dark by 7:00. Not the long evenings that we typically have in Boston in the summer.

Went to the Chatachuk Market later this morning. It’s huge and sprawling, selling everything from Pommerian puppies to glass tiles for spa bathrooms to Thai pop CDs. It seems like a jumble at first but it’s actually organized by “subject matter” – housewares, pets, clothing, furniture, etc. For all that, I only bought three small wooden candle holders.

On the way back, I got off at the Siam Square SkyTrain stop. Oh my God – I have seen the promised land and it is the gourmet market hall in the Siam Paragon shopping mall. Fresh produce, prepared foods, aisles and aisles of every food stuff made by man. Lots of Thais doing their weekly shopping, but also lots of expats wandering the aisles in search of foods from home – in my case, peanut butter. Once again, my attempts to buy wine and beer were thwarted – turns out that you can only buy liquor from 11:00 – 2:00 PM and from 5:00 PM to midnight. Not sure why there is an afternoon hiatus, but I was there at 2:30 so no luck. I did manage, however, to find laundry detergent for the front-loading washer in my apartment. You can imagine the pantomime required to make clear that distinction.

Pictures from Chatachuk Market:

The SkyTrain at the Asoke Station