Shifting Street Markets

When I first came to Bangkok and saw all the street vendors it was a cacophony of overwhelming sensory stimulation, a big blur of people, smells, sights, colors, textures and noise. Add to that the searing heat and humidity which usually puts it all way over the top for me. When I am feeling good, not to hot or tired, these sights and sounds are really interesting. I see food raw and in the process of being cooked that I have never seen before. I don’t know whether it is sweet and a dessert or a main dish and salty which a lot of food is in Thailand.

Yesterday I went out at around 10am just about when it was getting really too hot to comfortably walk anywhere leisurely. I was on a mission to get a paper and a cool fruit smoothie for Janet. This was a mission to be accomplished as expediently as possible as my melting point is far lower than the Thaïs. Walking to our neighborhood store I am usually the only non-Thai on the street and this morning it was bustling with activity. I saw so many more vendors than I usually do with lots of fruit, flowers and various unknown food. As I was making my way back home I noticed they were breaking down their booths and packing up to go home. Something clicked.

I realized that the vendors and markets I have been seeing on the streets are really an evolving daily market with different vendors sharing the same space at different times of the day. It’s a time share for the sidewalk spot throughout the day not just one poor Thai working the same cart for 12-18 hours a day. By the afternoon the fruit and flowers carts are less abundant and the meal carts are everywhere with tables and stools set up for the lunch crowd. I decided then that I wanted to make a point of walking this street (that I thought I knew) at different times of the day to see how it differs as the day progresses.

This morning we got an earlier start at 8 am which is actually not too hot, a good time to shop and snoop with the small camera in hand. The street was alive and thick with people. We were even early enough to see the monks out giving blessings and collecting there daily food donations. Fortunately we are taller than most so we can see a little distance as we move on what seems to be a narrow conveyor belt of people. Like a line of ants moving around any obstacle in its way and filling in any gaps or openings that appear. Stopping is not a problem as people just move around you. Passing sometimes gets a bit challenging as you must venture into the oncoming swarm of bodies to move around the slow poke or person buying something. It’s right about now that you start to feel that trickle of sweat stream around your eyebrow and down your face. That’s what eyebrows are made for, natural rain gutters.

We stopped and bought a few veggies for lunch and some sort of unknown tapioca concoction for breakfast. We even found a vendor selling carrot soup, which was a real score. So now we are back home and it is before 10am and we are on our 2nd cold shower of the day. I think I might pass on going out for the noon vendors today; braving the heat and the lunch crowd can wait till it cools down in the evening to see what is happening on the street.