After walking around the Lights of Happiness and taking too many photos, Emily, her friends and I decided to check out a nearish Night Market. So we hailed a tuk tuk, haggled the price and made our way there. It was a tight ride for four people, one sitting on the floor of the tuk tuk, the rest of us squished together and gross from the heat and humidity. When we got near, the Tuk Tuk driver motioned towards the night market, we paid and then proceeded to go in the opposite direction. I’m not sure why we did this, probably because it was one of those streets in Bangkok that are ridiculously hard to cross, like an intense game of Frogger.
So we found ourselves in the flower market. Booths, shops, stalls, and stands closing in on both sides of the sidewalk filled with flowers. Orchids, birds of paradise, baby’s breath, roses, carnations, marigolds, everything. I think a lot of the flowers were being sold wholesale, especially in the warehouse we ended up in. The flowers were probably then put together as offerings for the nearest temples, spirit houses, or boats/taxis. There was also food, like the smallest pineapples I think I’ve ever seen. Everything was beautiful.
The Night Market however, I learned, was one of many all throughout Bangkok. And the one we went too was okay. We didn’t see anything we particularly wanted. There were lots of clothes, places to get the rubber bands in braces switched out to brighter colors, tattoo pop-up shops, bags, baby clothes, just really a lot of stuff. We arrived too early. Maybe right after set up time to beat the crowds and found that a lot of the shops were still setting up. So after a bit of wandering we headed out behind the stalls and one of Emily’s friends found a little stand covered in fairy lights with music nearby selling drinks. So we bought two, in pitchers. They were like slushies, cold, icy, and a bit alcoholic. We got a lemon kamikaze and a melon slush which were decorated with gummy candies. We sat at the impromptu seating at the edge of the tiny park overlooking the river, sipping on shots of icy drinks and just talking. It was a lot of fun.
When we left and re-looked at all the stalls it was still not very impressive. We also ended up loosing each other at one point and in one of the clothing stalls Emily and her friends were followed around by a man very obviously filming them and not smiling or responding to their greetings. Not sure why that happened but kinda added a creepy cap off to the night that we just couldn’t seem to shake.
