"No Photo or Vdo"

This weekend has been one of wandering Bangkoks markets. On Saturday Steve, Clint, Ashon Jennifer and I decided to travel to JJ Market (also known as Chatuchak Market). Later we met up there with Ashton and Will


Its hard for me to describe the gigantic size of this market. It is about half of the size of the summerfest grounds, and is so densely packed that there are 15000 different stalls of people selling wears. Yes, you read that correctly: Fifteen Thousand. It is overwhelming, so as is typical we just walked straight into the mess and got ourselves lost as quickly as possible and went from there. Walking into this market was similar to walking into a cornfield; a few steps and one turn later and you cant see the end. We wandered around finding everything for sale. There was beautiful artwork, wooden tablewares, tables, housewares, food (as there is always food in thailand), instruments, toys, Buddha Images, pets, and almost anything that you can buy anywhere in thailand. Clint ended up with boxers, and Jennifer with a bath mat at the end of the day, while I just ate a lot.
One of the most wonderful things about this wonderful place was the prices. Everything was at 'thai prices' or prices that things cost away from tourist attractions (and thai people know this and bargain down when they need to).

Eventually we wandered out of the market and onto a street. We walked down it and I almost passed a food vendor, until i noticed what he was selling. Bugs.


I know this is the moment you all have been waiting for. Getting to see the video of me and steve putting bugs into our mouths and chewing and swallowing. Unfortunately Jennifer has the video. But suffice to say, it was interesting. We started with some larva. They werent too bad: cruchy, but not that filling. Therefor I went back and got a cockroach. A thai man nearby told me to break open the back of it and then bite in. I did and there was an interesting, mashed potato/meaty taste to it. I would definitely try it again sometime.

As we walked along we saw what we thought was an entrance back into the market. We realized a bit later that we found a neighboring market that noone tells the tourists about. The majority of this market was for pets. And I dont think ive ever been in a place with so many animals. They had more puppies than a puppy farm (but well taken care of) they had more fish than an aquatic pet store (not counting the ones to be eaten in a different part of the market) They had turtles, squirrels, iguanas, parots, honey bees, marmosets, ducks, spidermonkies and meerkats, plus the odd Crocodile(after much debate Steve used his knowledge of reptilian dentistry to discern it was actually an alligator (upon writing this post we found out that steve was in fact wrong and it was a crocodile after all)).


You may notice that i dont have the picture proof of some of the more exotic animals i mentioned. That is because those shops had signs that said "No Photo or Vdo". At first this was confusing to us. We figured it wasnt because of PETA because most all of the animals were well taken care of. We decided most likely those animals were illegal to sell and own.

While trying to find our way out of the pet shop area we came to a dead end near a lot of roosters. We noticed a ring, and half wondered, half joked if it was for cockfighting. As we were about to turn around and leave we noticed 2 gentlemen both bringing their roosters to the arena.
And lo and behold those cocks went at eachother with ferocity. The talons were taped over so that they couldnt kill eachother (cant sell a dead rooster for much). It was actually very fascinating to watch.


After wandering the market for hours, getting lost and then finding our way again, we decided to take the subway across the city to go see the snake farm. Sadly when we arrived we were informed that the snake farm was closed. We saw a park nearby and decided go to check it out.
Some places have tai chi in the park, and Bangkok has...jazzercize. We saw a large group of people dancing in front of an instructor on stage, mirroring her dance moves. Needless to say we ran to join in.

(the tall one in back is will. hes really easy to find in a crowd here)

After that round of dancing we grabbed some food from vendors and took a leisurely walk around the park. Then the 2nd daily playing of the national anthem happened. 2 times a day the nation anthem plays outside and everyone who hears it stops what they are doing and listens. It was incredibly eerie and reminded me of the ImprovEverywhere Grand Central Freeze.
Once everyone started moving again we came to a spot where more people were lining up to dance. The start of the first song started by blaring "WELCOME TO THAILAND!" and then hundreds of people started to boggie in unison.


At this point we all started to feel a bit hungry (We of course had joined in on the second dance as well and burned a lot of calories), so we decided to go to KFC ("The spice in your life" according to their slogan here), however it wasnt the All-American meal one might expect.

In Thailand fast food is an expensive purchase, because the converted price is equal to american dollars, even though the general cost of food here is cheaper. The menu is different, having spicy chicken on rice and some other local flavors, and the fried chicken itself is a bit more spicy, like Popeye's is in teh USA.
The meal was served on porcelain plates, real glasses and real silverware. There are two soda options, pepsi and 7up. Thus far, i have not seen any Mountain Dew in Thailand. This is a constant struggle for me to cope with. Jennifer and I decided to split the Variety meal for 9 dollars (300 baht) so that we could sample most all of the menu. All in all it was quite delicious and I really could have used the free refill since some of the food was truely spicy.
At this point it was time to head back to our respective places of residence and we bid farewell to Ashton and Will at the train station.