Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 👟🚊
This was a day we got much more than we bargained for.
In the morning, we decided to get breakfast at the Chatachuk weekend market—the largest outdoor market in the world. It’s a maze of epic proportions, with cramped but high-quality shops selling handmade and interesting crafts, clothes, food, and everything else. Unlike many other similar markets, many of the stalls are extremely specialized and family-run—so there aren’t too many “cookie-cutter” shops.
We bought a quick pandan coconut-filled bun before getting on the metro, and headed out.
We grabbed a little food when we got there, but it turned into a full day of eating. We wanted to try as many dishes as we could, so we got a little of everything over the course of the day. Quick laundry list:
- Assorted fruits (guava, dragonfruit, mango, apple, etc.) in a cup – 40 Baht
- Durian mochi (not Eric’s favorite) and Thai iced tea. What they don’t tell you is that you’re going to continue burping durian throughout the day – 70 baht but it cost so much more
- Thai bubble tea (Sarah says fantastic!) – 60 baht
- A whole salted fish. Amazing! Sarah was worried it would be too fishy, but it was perfectly light and flaky – 380 baht
- Tom sum – not an actual dish, as the lady at the fish stand told us (and made us say it again for the table next to us so they could laugh at us). It’s actually som tam, a green papaya salad that’s very flavorful, spicy, and delicious – 80 baht
- Coconut ice cream with various fruit jellies on top (great!) – 35 baht
- A coconut for drinking (refreshing) – 50 baht
- Pad Thai (excellent according to Sarah) – 60 baht
- Mango sticky rice (also delicious) – 60 baht
- A ground pork dish over rice with egg, light spicy, where the rice definitely wouldn’t have been food-safe later in the day, since they were storing it in a cooler. Luckily, it had just been cooked when Eric ordered it. – 40 baht
- These little sort of marshmallow/coconut-filled waffle tacos (delicious and very cheap!) – 20 baht for 5
- Spring rolls (good) – 20 baht
- Korean fried chicken which the stand person warned was “very spicy” multiple times, but turned out not to be that spicy (very crunchy and delicious, though) – 36 baht for 3
- Fish curry grilled on a banana leaf (awesome! But too spicy to finish) – 30 baht
- A full squid on a stick, which they sadly took off and cut up before serving. Eric had visions of eating the thing off the stick like a seafood popsicle – 60 baht
- Fish in spicy green curry, which Eric got kind of weirded out by half-way through—and maybe not food-safe (pretty good though) – 40 baht
- Mango with what we thought was a Tajín sort of salt on top. This turned out to be “sweet fish salt” which we both found inedible unfortunately – 30 baht
- Crispy pork with garlic and onions (amazing) – 80 baht
- Beef skewers, but the beef was definitely rancid so we only ate a bite each – 60 baht
- Another mango smoothie – 60 baht
Writing it out, it does feel like a lot of food, though it was 1321 baht, or about 40 bucks total. Almost all of it was amazing, but it was sort of a grab-bag. We did shy away from stalls that were definitely not food safe, so hopefully we avoid any disasters. Still haven’t gotten sick! (Fingers crossed) [editors note: updating this while fighting food poisoning, but that’s a later story for another day and probably unrelated]
We also decided we wanted to shop for some souvenirs, so we went to the section of the market with very nice China and tea sets. We figured we could just send everything back in the mail.
Well, that turned out to be a disaster. We shopped around at a few shippers, and ended up deciding on the Thai Post. We quickly realized that it was going to be more expensive to ship things than to buy them. So, we figured, might as well load up the package.
😩 <- Sarah’s face when she realized her mistake.
They were nice enough to let us leave our stuff there while we bought more things to fill up our box, but when we went to pay, they didn’t take any of our credit cards. We didn’t have quite enough cash, so Eric went to the ATM to take out more.
Well, that didn’t work. We had pulled out a bunch of cash to pay for the dishes, and had run over the daily limit for cash withdrawal. We spent a good bit of time trying to figure out our options (and on the phone with credit card companies) before finally getting a cash advance from Eric’s credit card (shoutout Amex). (Reminder to pay that off ASAP!)
They also weren’t the best packers, so fingers crossed that everything makes it back in one piece!
In the market, Sarah had her eye on some pants and we ended up negotiating a good deal for about 300 baht (about $9). They’re kind of a genius design! They tie in the front and the back, so they’re very flowy but one-size-fits-all without any elastic.
Sarah also found a great set of shorts from a really nice couple. They were even nice enough to let her try them on, though that’s not very common in the market. The couple even designed and made them themselves!
Our best deal of the day was definitely a plain black t-shirt we got right as a shop was closing for 20 baht (about 60 cents). It was exactly what Sarah was looking for, at an impossibly low price.
We were feeling pretty sore from all the walking, so we stopped into a stall for some 30-minute Thai foot massages. Eric’s masseuse was very forceful and really worked out the kinks. Sarah’s could sense that she was too ticklish to enjoy it, so she was much more gentle. Overall, can’t beat it for around 500 baht (15 dollars).
Once again extremely tired and sticky, we went back to our hotel for some long-awaited showers and sleep.
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