One of the largest open air markets in the world is called
Chatuchak and runs on Saturdays and Sundays in Bangkok. That was our target for this day as we were
in shopping mode during these last few days in Asia, looking to pick up some
interesting gifts for the folks back home.
But first, we wanted to visit the MOCA, which is the Museum
of Contemporary Art and located quite close to the market. This museum just opened in 2012 and was built
by a billionaire Thai man named Boonchai Bencharongkul. He is an avid art collector and important
benefactor for Thai artists. Not only
did he fund the construction of the five level building, but he also filled it
with approximately 30% of his art collection, and then donated the whole works
to the king of Thailand and its people!
I loved the gallery, as much as any gallery I have
visited. A lot of the works had themes
of death and destruction and many were surreal, fantastic and epic
representations of fantasy worlds. Any
one of these would have been perfect for the next Mastodon album! There were also hundreds of sculptures
covering many topics and ranging from a full size sculpture of Salvador Dali
painting himself in a mirror to wooden carvings to a bizarre collection of half
human, half dog creatures lying all over the floor. Ana didn’t care for these too much and I
believe her and Stella actually walked past with their eyes closed while Magnus
and I were taking photos.
This was the first serious museum or gallery we have visited
during the trip. Yes, we have been to
others, but they just haven’t been in great shape, or were poorly lit, or there
were no English translations for any of the works, but usually they were all
those things together. Being able to visit
a brand new, professional, serious gallery was quite a treat and I enjoyed it
immensely, especially since the art was so damn creepy.
In way of perfect contrast, we took a taxi to the Chatuchak
market and its 20,000 vendors and over 200,000 daily visitors. It is a massive, throbbing, odorous, diverse,
flavourful, crowded, gritty collection of every possible sort of item you can
imagine. From a mile away you could
practically see the fumes rising from the 35 acre melting pot of
merchandise. Need to buy a sword? There are thousands to choose from. You should be able to find a t-shirt you
like, there are millions of them hanging from every possible place to hang
things. You could buy textiles,
antiques, hardware, Indian headdresses, electronics, art, snakeskin boots, weapons,
and even pets. There was a large open
cage with a dozen baby bunnies, all dressed up in clothes. There were vendors doing magic tricks. Hungry?
Food stalls were everywhere, selling everything you could imagine, from
roasted frogs to chicken biryani to burgers and shakes (papaya shakes, of
course).
We rummaged through the chaos for several hours and when we
couldn’t take it anymore, we headed to the exit, feeling dirty, sweaty and
tired, but triumphantly holding a bag crammed with deals. We took the Skytrain back to the hotel, had a
chill down session for an hour or two, then headed back out to Chinatown to meet
some friends. Ana had received an email
from the lovely French family we met back in Myanmar and they were passing
through Bangkok on their way back home, and invited us to meet them for dinner.
We met them at Texas Suki, a nifty Chinese restaurant, and
had a lovely meal, a couple drinks and a great chat about our mutual adventures
over the weeks since we last met. It was
so nice meeting up with people we knew, and they are such a great family. The restaurant had a big kids play area, so
we let the apes go wild while we had a visit, and around 11pm we realized the
restaurant was dark and there was nobody left besides a cook and two
waitresses, who were patiently waiting for us to leave so they could go
home! So we rounded up our sweaty
children went for a short walk together around Chinatown, then parted ways for
the second, but almost certainly not final time, as I am positive we will meet
again.
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