Night Market and the Red Light District



Workers riding on top of their product

 

Bangkok is always busy with traffic, and it's not a walking-type of place.  People get around by local bus (not air-conditioned), or scooters (there's always an army of scooters at the traffic lights), Skytrain (above the street subway), cars, cabs and TukTuks.

Riding the Skytrain like a local

These look like a motorized, 3-wheel rickshaw.  The passengers sit on a padded bench at the back, under a canopy while the driver is up front, driving what looks like a motorcycle.  They are cheap, and scary.  The drivers zip all over in them, cutting off traffic at will.  We've taken our chances a few times (both day and night) by using a TukTuk to get around. 

TukTuk

Family out for a ride

It is necessary to haggle with the driver since they don't have meters in the TukTuk.  We feel like pros and Al is quite good at the process.  We approach the driver, who asks, "You need TukTuk?"  Al tells him where we're going and asks, "How much?"  Invariably, the answer is 100 baht (which converts to $3.40).  Al haggles and we pay 40 baht ($1.36).  Cheap-as long as we live through the ride.

Doing some intense business



Up the street from our hotel, just far enough away to need a TukTuk, is the night market.  It opens at 6 pm and runs well past midnight.  This place is a blast!  We've gone twice now.  It's hot and crowded and filled with open stalls selling clothing, shoes, jewelry (Tiffany, Pandora, tons of knock-off watches), sunglasses, purses, and all kinds of other junk.  There are street food vendors, cooking unrecognizable strips of meat.  We haven't eaten any of that-people tell us the food is safe but we prefer to leave that alone. 

The Night Market is bordered by "night clubs" on two sides.  This is the red light district, and the sex trade is thriving here (perhaps the city name says it all!)  We've seen many older, white men with young Thai women (and with young Thai men, too).

Night club workers

A "night club"





It has been very warm here, and very humid.  Perfect weather for a cold beer.  Our hotel room is equipped with a mini bar fridge which is fully stocked, and outrageously expensive.  There is a small grocery store about 3 blocks away and one sultry afternoon we walked down there to buy a six-pack of Singha beer (the Thai beer). We knew we could make room for it in our mini fridge.  In the store we made our selection and took it to the cashier.  She refused to ring in our purchase.  Imagine our confusion.  Finally we understood-they don't sell beer between 2 pm and 5 pm.  It was 2:30.  We looked at each other in absolute disbelief.  Here we had in our hot (literally) hands a six-pack, cold and beaded with sweat, and we couldn't buy it for another 2.5 hours.  This was even worse than being in a dry county in Texas.  At least there they didn't have any beer.  Here, they had it and we couldn't get it.  We put it back, walked back to the hotel and sulked by the pool, where we had our beer delivered to us by the cabana boy.  At 5 o'clock we trudged back to the store to buy the six-pack. 

Night ride in a TukTuk