Thailand, Saturday: Chatuchak Weekend Market and the End

The ladies on this trip came to shop! Which is fine, because I did too.  Saturday's event was the Chatuchak Market.  We took the metro to get there.  You can look out from the metro walkway over the market, and all you see is tin roofs for what looks like miles!  It would take days to visit every shop in there.  And we just had a few hours!

I powered up with this delicious breakfast at the hotel.  Not pictured is the made-to-order omelet.  It was delicious. 

 At the market.  And you can't really tell how hot and crowded it was.  And SO MANY stalls of stuff! This is the outside portion.  I don't know if there were multiple outside aisles, or if this was the only one.  I was immediately lost once we went inside and if I hadn't paired up with my friend Julie, I'd never have found my way out!!

One of the entrances to the inside maze.  I took this photo because this was our meeting point.   

A fantastical find I needed to document for Delaney.  So next time she says she's bored, I can hand her a jar of buttons.

 We came out for fresh air and lunch after buying much loot. And this was happening.

All 10 of us at the Market.  We had tasty street vendor fare for lunch and dived back into shopping! 

 This guy was modeling the shirt to give an idea of its size, and so I could text it to Josh to see if he wanted it. Josh said no. But Julie got it for her son.

 I thought this was awesome.  I was pursuing earrings (I may have bought 4 for 100 bhat), and I saw the vendor, being a mom, helping her daughter with her homework.

We shopped till we ran out of money and the ability to carry all the loot.  I was pleased with everything I got.  But alas, I think all of us wished we had gotten more!

This is from the metro walkway.  Traffic is so congested!

Virgin pina colada for dinner.

And look!  I changed it up!  After green curry for lunch, dinner and dinner, I tried out red curry for my last dinner in Thailand! Green is still my favorite.

The adventure ended at 10pm Saturday night.  Mostly.  We took a private van to the airport and had plenty of time to get checked in and to meander to our gate for our 1:45am flight home.

This cool display was in the airport. 

I liked it! 

We arrived in Naha at 8am Sunday morning.  That flight was less awful than I expected, but still pretty dreadful.  Here I am, taking a selfie to send to Dan to let him know I was back in Okinawa and on my way home.  Well.... home once I got my luggage and took the shuttle bus to the terminal so I could drive home....

Thailand, Friday: Everything else

I think we made this stop to break up the drive. And also to check out some cool stuff.  It was a small attraction.  We got to tour a traditional teakwood Thai home and walk though the grounds, where our amazing guide pointed out the different plants that were growing for food.  We learned about the Thai royal family and lots of other random things. It was definitely fascinating! We saw coconut sugar being made as well.

We could climb the coconut tree, but I was not brave enough.  I do not like heights.  Wendy is not afraid of heights!

When you have a million coconut shells, what do you do with them?! Some rather clever things.

This handsome fellow was showing off, so I got a picture for Callie.

End of the tour!  We got a group shot with Pookie, the awesome tour guide.

And I ate the spiciest, yet still delicious, green curry I have ever eaten.

I wanted a night photo of the road.  But the traffic light was wrong for a good traffic picture.  Still pretty though.

And the air quality in Thailand was awful.  Awful enough that school was cancelled on the Friday we were there.  And someone had this fun app that compared it to smoking.  I definitely had a sore throat and gunky lungs from it.  It was bad. 

Thailand, Friday: The Death Railway Museum and The River Kwai

I had never heard of the Death Railway or the River Kwai.  So this was an interesting stop.  The museum was about the railroad that the Japanese decided to build through Thailand down to Burma so that they could better take over the world.  They used PoWs and pressed labor and contracts to build it.

Walking into the museum.

I got so involved in the museum I guess I forgot to take any pictures.

Group photo after the Museum.  

Next to the museum was this cemetery.

They reburied the men who died and had been buried along the route here.

It was really nice.  A good memorial.

I very much enjoyed the gravestones with their epithets.

There were some good ones.

We drove to the River Kwai, which was the starting point for the railway.  

 It is a big tourist spot now. But still neat to visit. 

Group photo I suppose I should document our group....

Liz, Wendy, Anna, Sherrie, Brook, Julie, Brooke, Me, Amy and Noele

Selfie at the river.

My new friend!  But not a very good friend because he wouldn't even deign to lift his head to say hello. (no he wasn't dead, he moved for something else, just not people!)

And yep, the train came through!  There were places to step off to get off the tracks, and the train moved very slowly.

Here it comes. 

 And passing by.

Me on the river. 

the river was beautiful.  And I crossed the entire bridge just to say I could.  then  walked back. 

 And this cracked me up.  There are Tourist Police who's job it is to make sure all is well for the tourists.  These two police in the green uniforms made me laugh because the group of ladies wanted a photo with one of them and the other is taking the photo.  And my friend Julie in the orange there has no idea that was what I was looking at and she thinks I'm just taking a picture of her.

Thailand, Friday: the Floating Market

 We went to the Floating Market. It is on a small river and there are vendor stalls along the bank and then vendors in boats, all hawking their wares. You float down in a boat and if you see something you are interested in, your boat person skillfully maneuvers the boat over to that spot so you can check it out. It was kind of crazy.  There were tons of boats in the market area and sometimes you got all jammed in there.  They are packed in so closely you could literally walk across the river by stepping on the boats.

Vendors on the banks of the river. 

Vendors in boats selling freshly cooked food!!

Here is a better view of the cooking. Impressive on a long wooden boat!

 Me in my boat. Cruising through the craziness.

This guy is selling coconut ice cream.

I was trying to show the crowded river, but this does it no justice.

We paddled through the  market for a bit and then it got less congested. 

 This lady was on the bank with this adorable lemur, and I needed to get a photo for Rylee (who loves Lemurs!)

 That's me in my boat!  We circled around the river and went to quieter waters.

I was impressed with how pretty the houses and everything were. 

 We floated by the places they lived- these houses on stilts, and much more impressive than I'd have expected.

 It was nice and tranquil to meander by the houses and interesting to see.

This guy was out washing his laundry.  Apparently I missed seeing the lady washing her dishes in the river!

 We eventually paddled back into the chaotic fray before docking and leaving our boat. It was a fun experience, although the chief complaint from the other ladies was that if your boat paddler didn't cooperate, you couldn't get away from aggressive sellers!

Thailand, Friday: The Train Market

Friday we had a tour scheduled with an awesome gal named Pookie. She picked us up at the hotel in a 12 passenger van and took us off to do fun things.  

I documented breakfast. They had the most delicious pastries.  The fruit was adequate, and the steamed bun was tasty.

But.... back to our tour!  The first stop was the Train Market.

There is a maze of stalls and vendors inside this warehouse and all kinds of fresh food is sold in here.

Fresh fish, veggies, spices, whatever you may want for dinner is available here! Frogs, chickens... seriously... anything.

 The lack of sanitation was kind of a dealbreaker for us.  But it was fascinating.

 Apparently, years ago, the warehouse closed for renovations or repairs or some such thing.  So the vendors moved outside to the train tracks.  When the building opened again, people did not move off the tracks. Their stalls back up against the building and the train tracks are the walkway between the two sides.  So you meander down the actual train tracks and try not to trip and fall while you purées the offerings.

 If you look closely, you can see the railroad tracks in the photo.  And the canopies on either side touch over the center.  So they are serious about their selling here.

And 8 times a day, a train goes through.  There is a 5 minute warning whistle and the vendors wait about 3 minutes before calmly pulling their tables back and dropping the canopies.

Here is our group, along the tracks! The whistle has blown and we are squeezing back into the stall. The canopies above us have been pulled down but the ones behind us have not yet. 

Here comes the train! 

Yeah, it moved slowly enough for folks to get out of the way.  But you can see there is only about a foot of clearance on either side.  It was crazy!!

And it was a fun visit.  Pookie, the tour guide bought us a bunch of different fruits and snacks and we sampled them in the van on our way to the next stop.  It was awesome!