bangkok 3 saturday (pm)

(I have to admit, these Jatujak market pictures are not mine, I was too worried about being mugged in that crowd to pull up the digital camera and snap away—there was little room to breathe much less take photos.)

Jatujak market is an amazing place, with its’ street stalls and amazing food. We spent a good 6 hours there, and we didn’t even cover 1/3 of its stalls. Hawkers screaming and tourists with already big bags pushing and shoving their way down the dirty lanes. It was a real eye opener, a real confluence of rich and poor, where tourists all flock to make purchase of cheap, and I mean Cheap articles of anything—from clothes to ornaments to accessories to even a whole lane of puppies for sale.

It was incredibly hot with poor ventilation and great fun. The boyscout being an absolute angel in carrying my bags without protest and patiently waiting while I scoured through piles and piles of imitation roxy, billabong and quicksilver. I think we lost some weight there in the market, from perspiring buckets and hauling huge bags. The boyscout bought a lot of spa effects, and samples of possible uniforms tor his spa, but nothing for himself—except 3 pairs of pants, which is featherweight, compared to my spoils of the day.

Jatujak opened my eyes to the world of poverty really. With armless, legless beggars trying to make their way through the crowd, and children of hawkers sleeping on rattan mats on the dirt floor. There is an unusual emphasis on dirt floor in this post, but you’d have to see it yourself to understand the appall. It’s neither soil nor road, it’s neither dry nor wet, with pockets of puddles, black water, where rain had collected. The limbless beggars made me think of my father’s paranoia about Thailand, where he believed someone would kidnap me and chop off my limbs (and tongue) and sell me off to the syndicate to work as a beggar. I paused to think about how they ended up as such, them, a little stump that barely reached to our knees. I don’t mean to be cruel, I am not. But we saw people step on them, accidentally, because for someone that size and one would think, physically challenged, they move pretty darn fast—and people don’t notice them until their knees bump into their heads.

I wish I could do an inventory of my spoils from the market, but I can’t, simply because I do not know exactly how many t-shirts I bought, close to 25 maybe, with around 6 dresses, too many earrings, slippers, shorts, even shorter shorts, was sorely tempted to buy a puppy—from the MANY on display—a quiet little Yorkshire terrier, for 300 SGD. But Basil the German Shepard is coming soon, so I will wait.
--7.45 pm Jatujak Market