Saturday, March 31, 2007
Bangkok, Thailand, 13-16 Jan 2007: Chinatown Up Close
Colours, Smells And Sounds
 |
| Nestled between Yaowarat Road and Charoen Krung Road is a warren of side-streets. Battle the teeming crowds that throng the market. Raucous shouts, frantic bargaining, pungent aroma from strange seafood, raw, cooked or dried, fill the hot sweat-drenched air. |
   |
Labels: Bangkok, food, market, Thailand
Friday, March 30, 2007
Bangkok, Thailand, 13-16 Jan 2007: Chatuchak Market
After The Bombs, Business As Usual
  |
| Two weeks after the 2006 New Year's Eve bomb incidents, our intrepid group of 7 arrived in a Bangkok unshackled from the fear and uncertainty that had gripped the city only days before. Business was as usual. Chatuchak weekend market spilled over with shoppers. Stalls hawked everything, from the banal to the exotic - tee-shirts, trinkets, lotus flowers, etc. |
  |
   |
| There were thousands of food stalls. Some sell cooked meals arrayed buffet style; others, dried seafood, stirfries, fruits, etc. Watch out for a young boy, barely ten, intently cracking tiny quail eggs over a burner, turning each expertly as it cooked. He then gingerly plied them into polystyrene saucers. Doused with fish sauce, 20 for a buck. Any takers? |
   |
  |
| We were surprised to find the (in)famous pet market still open, having read news of a recent clamp down on the animal trade. See, hear, smell and touch yelping puppies ("Pick me! Pick me"), screeching parakeets, jittery squirrels, etc. Not to everyone's taste, I guess. |
  |
Labels: animals, Bangkok, food, market, Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand, 13-16 Jan 2007: Grand Palace
All That Glitters IS Gold
   |
| Reigning supreme on the east bank of Bangkok's Chao Phraya River, the Grand Palace is the historical and cultural heart of the city. Scrupulously preserved, the surfaces of the temples are either densely covered with intricate colourful mirrored tiles or lovingly applied with layers of gold leaf. Phantasmagorical demons in classical poses buttress glittering tall chedi, forbidding entry to the gilded steps that lead to heaven. Palace rooftops stir alive as slender gold curved spires leap skywards from the apices. |
  |
Labels: art, Bangkok, palace, religious site, Thailand
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License
These are the 30 countries that I have ever set foot on. Airport stopovers don't count!
