Stalls and Silk

Off to Chatuchak Weekend market today. The Sheraton has a shuttle boat to the nearest Skytrain station at Saphan Taksin so that’s a useful start. Skytrain (BTS) is an elevated Metro railway serving some parts of town including a couple of stations near the weekend market. Even at 1000 the outflow of people from Mo Chit BTS towards the market is constant so there’s no difficulty in finding our way; just follow the crowd.

The market is vast. Set around a road that circuits the whole market there are hundreds of internal alleyways between the road and many hundreds if not a thousand or more stalls. Clothes, food, household goods, bags and so on. We walk in a general direction for a couple of hours picking up some t shirts and a bag along the way. Some street food to keep us going a bit longer - spring rolls and couple of pork skewers. By 2pm and a further rest for drinks we think we’ve done enough but probably only seen a fraction of the total number of stalls and shops.

The market is noticeably busier so we head off on a short BTS ride to National Stadium and a short walk to Jim Thompson's House. He was a businessman and architect who relocated to Thailand after WW2 and promoted the Thai Silk Industry and then began to collect South east Asian art building his own house from parts of six traditional Thai-styled houses. It is these houses we visit today.

As we're on the tour a huge downpour of rain starts.Read more