In the morning Antonio took us to see his boat, which he is building at the outskirts of Bangkok. He has been building that boat for ten years already and he hopes to have it ready by the end of the year. It was impressive to see his dedication to this project and the boat will surely look nice once it is ready.
We then to the nearby Pangplee (or Bangphli) market – an old market in what used to be a remote small riverside village. According to Antonio, Bangkok has grown exponentially within the time he has lived there. Hence, what used to be remote villages amidst rice fields are now densely built up outskirts of the city. This market had been preserved quite nicely in its old style, but it looked a bit out of place taking into account the nearby new developments.
Antonio stayed working on his boat we went on to do some final shopping at Chatuchak market. According to its webpage, it is one of the world’s largest weekend markets: It covers an area of 27 acres and contains more than 15,000 booths, selling goods from every part of Thailand. As we are not very fond of the markets, shopping, crowds and filth that usually come together in SE Asia, we were prepared for the worst. But we were in fact very nicely surprised. The place was big enough not to feel overcrowded and as we didn’t happen to step into the food sections, it didn’t smell badly or look filthy. But they really have a lot of stuff there and it’s a great place to buy nice souvenirs at good prices. We spent a good three hours there until they started to close the place down at 6 pm. In the end, we got quite a lot of thighs – e.g. shawls, ties, a handbag, wooden decorative items for our home, pillow covers, etc., but didn’t spent all that much money. So, good business for us, good business for the vendors.
In the evening, Antonio took us to a nice pizza restaurant in the vicinity of the Thai prime minister’s residence in the Sukhumvit neighbourhood. In that sense, it was also kind of continuing the sightseeing, especially because Antonio had interesting stories to tell about all the places around.
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