Trip back to Bangkok and Chatuchak market (July 27)

Got up early to go for one more swim in the rooftop pool. I thought that I would eat breakfast at the tasty fruit salad/granola place, but it had not opened yet so I had leftover snacks from yesterday’s street market instead. It was lucky that I had bought way too much food! Then at 8:30 I caught a taxi to the Ko Samui airport. Upon landing in Bangkok, I took the airport train and skytrain back into the city, and returned to Hostelling International Mid-Bangkok, which is located in the Ratchathewi district, very near the Victory Monument. This monument was constructed in 1941 to celebrate the Thai victory in a brief fight with the French.

Ratchathewi road, the hostel is on a side street off of this

Victory monument, with very busy surrounding traffic circle

 This was my third time arriving in Bangkok during the past month, and this time I will actually be staying to explore it. The lady working at the hostel suggested that I go see the Chatuchak weekend market in the afternoon. To get there, I hopped back on the skytrain and rode to the last stop, Mor Chit, where I caught the bus to Chaiyaphum when I first arrived. The market started basically right next to the skytrain station, and it was enormous! I read that it is one of the largest markets in Asia. There was a largish path that went around in a circle, and it was surrounded by buildings housing an enormous number of stalls, with narrow paths leading between them. Some of the inner areas seemed quite stuffy, because not much fresh air could get in, so I tended to stay near the outer ones, or the areas that weren’t as packed. There were stalls selling basically everything one could think of, including clothes, soaps, food, statues of Buddhas and elephants, lamps, handbags, souvenirs, etc. I purchased a couple things, and also bought some coconut ice cream, which was served in a half coconut with peanuts, green sticky rice, and pumpkin as toppings. Arroy! (delicious!)

Coconut ice cream

Part way through my exploration of the market, a tropical downpour started and everyone ran to get under the roofs of the shops. It seemed to continue for the rest of the afternoon, with periods of downpour interspersed with times with no or light rain. Unfortunately, right when I was heading back to the skytrain station, the downpour started again, but since the street was so crowded no one could move very fast, and I was soaked by the time I got to the station. Luckily, since it is always warm out, getting soaked was not a big problem. When I got back to the hostel, I went to my favorite pad thai stand for dinner, which I found on my previous night here.