To market, to market

To the inveterate shopper, Bangkok means Jatujak (sometimes called "Chakatak" or, appropriately, "Shock Attack"), the sprawling mecca of bargain hunting, the mother of all tiangges, the weekend market with an infinite number of stalls where you can find anything–from clothes to antiques, sunglasses to sarongs, flipflops to windchimes, rubber shoes to pickled chilies–and all the dangling earrings your little heart desires. It seemed a matter of course that, flying in to Bangkok on a Sunday, I would immediately make my way to Jatujak. Nothing could be farther from my mind though, since I dislike shopping and I’m not not very good at it–my eye is simply not trained to pick out that one killer item in the pile. Tipped off by a friend, my destination was the food court level of the mall–any mall. And in today’s Bangkok, that is about the easiest thing to find.

Bangkok is awash with malls–multi-storied, air-conditioned, escalator’d, glass and steel temples to consumption and consumerism. The newest–and therefore the most popular, for the moment–is Siam Paragon, so that was our destination. It was a very easy commute on the Skytrain, which stations are very conveniently located and linked with major malls and buildings. Conveniently too for tourists, the bank inside the mall keeps mall hours.

The lower level that had the food court and the produce market was, not surprisingly, the most crowded. It was the time between lunch and merienda, but all the tables in the labyrinthine food hall were taken: a man halfway through both a cup of coffee and the Sunday paper; weary shoppers taking a juice break, surrounded by their purchases; a family at the end of what must have been a pretty long and sumptuous lunch, judging from the number of empty plates on the table; a young woman absently sipping iced tea totally absorbed in conversation on her cellphone.

The food stalls offered an international selection, from pasta to pad thai, dumplings to chicken fingers. The selection was, honestly, quite confusing. A table selling dried fruits and dates offered free tasting, as did another table with a colorful array of chichiria. The ice cream counters (there were at least three) let you sample the different flavors too. My friend was right: you could tikim-tikim your way to a very satisfying merienda without spending a single baht.

I decided on gelato–coffee and chocolate–for 56 baht and a place to sit down. I had an hour and a half before meeting up with my friends who were exploring the non-food delights on the floors above, and I had to fortify myself before heading in to the grocery to find the items on my very short shopping list. Unfortunately, the gelato was not as creamy and rich in flavor as I would have liked, but in this world, one must accept that not all ice creams are created equal.

There was no atis or lanzones in the fruit section, nor durian, but there were mangosteen and persimmons and plums and fresh dates and what looked like little loquats. The vegetable area yielded lovely butternut squash, plump eggplants and tomatoes and zucchinis, and bell peppers in the brightest shades.

I found the aisle of Thai spices and was confronted with such an array of curries it was difficult to choose. It was great fun though studying row upon row of exotic mixes and spices, many of them with only Thai script but interesting nevertheless. I decided to play safe and opted for packs with English descriptions, so at least I’d know what I was getting and how I was supposed to cook it. I hoped I remembered correctly that red curry is the hottest, yellow the mildest (if it is possible for curry to be mild) and green in between.

How time flies when you’re having fun reading labels! I picked my yellow and green curries and a few other items and headed for the check-out counter, then up to meet my friends to get on the Skytrain back to our hotel and a Thai foot massage before dinner.

We would visit a couple more food courts and groceries during our three-day stay in Bangkok, but the highlight was surely an early morning visit to the thalat or wet market via the river taxi. I adamantly refused all offers of a chartered boat or cruise and headed for the central pier just behind our hotel. Armed with a map showing the route of the river taxi, my friend Jocelyn and I hopped on this delightful, no frills transport and we were soon chugging down the fabled Chao Phraya.The day before the river was closed to all transport for a rehearsal of the grand fluvial parade to celebrate the 50th year of King Bhumibol’s reign in June, but that morning boats and barges were chugging merrily along. Fare per person is 13 baht, paid to an on board collector with a bamboo cylinder that was change box, ticket dispenser and validator all rolled into one.

We got off at Memorial Bridge and walked left. Our destination was the flower market, but our first encounter was a fruit vendor with crates of lanzones and mangoes. "Later, on our way back," we told ourselves.

We found the flower section but, to be honest, it was disappointing. There were lots and lots of flowers, but not of the variety and quality I had hoped. We walked all the aisles, witnessed an accident between a taxi and a bus (nobody screamed or cursed, they just looked at the dented fender), and decided to make our way back to the lanzones.

Along the way, we were distracted by visions of red and green–chilies, mounds and mounds of chilies of all sizes. Then kafir limes and leaves, and lemongrass, and the strange looking root called galangal that is at the heart of Thai cooking. We could not pass up these great finds, so we made up for the flowers we did not buy by buying what we needed for the ultimate tom yum!

We went back to the lanzones lady but she was less than amiable; she wouldn’t sell her fruits, dismissing us with a curt wave. When we persisted, she quoted the ridiculous price of 150 baht per kilo–for the whole lot. Further along we found a nice man with even nicer lanzones, at only 50 baht a kilo. The catch was...it was 18 kilos or nothing, since they do not retail. Our combined charm and most kawawa look almost succeeded in getting us two kilos each, but the missus put an abrupt end to that transaction. For a quick second we actually considered buying 18 kilos, even computing our profit if we would sell the 14 extra kilos. But alas, it was not to be, and we consoled ourselves by saying it was probably sour anyway, being off season.

But we had our kafir and lemongrass and galangal, and a most enriching experience of going to market via the River of Kings...truly royal!