Bangkok Day 3 - Chatuchak Weekend Market and Chinatown

I was feeling pretty hung over, but it was my last day in Bangkok, so I had to make the most of it. I managed to wake up at 7:00am! Cathrine and I ended up going out the the Chatuchak Weekend Market. (Martin probably overslept, because we waited for him for about 45 min, but he didn't show up.) Yes, it was another market, selling the usual tourist trinkets, local foods, and other wares. But what I liked about this one was the local designers that sold their clothes for cheap, considering it was pretty well-made and unique. The stores were set up like boutiques, and it was neat to see what they could do with such a small space. There were even vintage clothes shops. (I didn't buy anything though, can you believe it?)


Vintage Dress Shopping ath Chatuchak




After the Chatuchak Weekend Market, Cathrine and I headed over to Chinatown, via the MRT (underground subway). There was only one line throughout the entire city. (There's the SkyTrain as well, but that is above ground and I believe there were about 3 lines for that.) For single ride, you pay for an electronic token that you tap to enter, and then deposit when you exit. First time I had seen that. Usually it's some form of paper ticket.

We eventually got to Chinatown, but I wasn't that thrilled about it. Maybe because I was so familiar with chinatowns growing up, but it was what I expected. I think I heard some people speaking Cantonese along the way. There was the Sampeng Lane market, which was extremely crowded and narrow. We only lasted one block of it. It was a little to much.




I finally got to ride a tuk tuk when we left Chinatown. It's funny how they try to scam foreigners, because Cathrine had taken one her first day. And for 40 baht, she had a personal driver for 3 hours. So when we tried to flag one down, the first one stated his price was 80 baht, for a ride that was probably only 20 minutes at the most. We talked him down to 40 baht, but he wouldn't go any lower so we passed. (A metered cab starts at 35 baht, so we knew that wasn't going to be worth it.) The next one we flagged down stated 20 baht, much more reasonable, and I tried to get him to take 10, but he wouldn't, so we just went for 20 baht. In USD, that's less than a $1 :P It was fun ride, and the timing was great because by the time we got back to our hostel area, it started to pour heavily.



Our last thing on our to-do list today was to get a foot massage. It was raining so hard though, we had to stand in front of a bank awning so we wouldn't get soaked. It seemed like it was taking forever, so when it started to get a teeny bit lighter, we ran over to the massage place. It was well deserved, after 2.5 full days of walking! After that, I went on my way to leave Bangkok and on to Nong Khai...