Sunday, November 9th, 2008
“Right so what should we do about the public transport, the Subway just isn’t cuttin it.”
“Yeah maybe an overland train through the city?”
“Hmm not really enough room, too many buildings and stuff.”
“What if it just followed the main road that’s already there and we built the train directly up above it?”
“Haha, yeah good one…. Hmm no that’s good actually. What would we call it though?”
“Ummm…. ‘The Sky Train’ ”
“Shut up now your just being silly!”
“Sorry. Umm….”
“Yeah let’s go with Sky Train”
“Cool! Lunch?”
“Yeah I’m starvin!”
“Hey what about that big monument thing at the Roundabout though?”
“Ah I’m sure we could just shimmy around it.”
“Yeah probably. And this eh, Sky Train thing, it’s gonna cover the Old Town right? Cos we kinda skipped that bit with subway.”
“Nah, it’s only tourists that go up there anyway, they’re fine with the tuk-tuks.”
Monday, October 27th, 2008
“No, I don’t want a Tuk-Tuk, or a taxi, or a guided tour, or some lovely gems. And tell your mates in Hong Kong I don’t want a suit, or shirts, or a watch”. OK, so I haven’t actually said that to any of them, I’ve been amazingly patient, and smiley. It’s all about the smiles in Thailand. It’s also all about the scams. Granted you’d have to be pretty daft to fall for most of them, but it gets a little irritating being constantly paranoid of anyone that tries to talk to you. And the simple matter of getting a lift around the ‘old town’ (conveniently both popular with tourists and not served by regular public transport) involves a tedious and time wasting bout of haggling. I’ve never been great at haggling, and it’s difficult to find the motivation when you suddenly realise your arguing over a matter of twenty pence. OK just have the 100 fucking Baht if you’ll shut up and let me get on with my day.
But it’s not all bad in Bangkok, there’s some cracking markets to hunt round. Last weekend we headed for the famous (well, it was in the guide book) Chatachuk Weekend Market in Bangkok. Fiona thought it started at 7, so we got up at 7, which meant we arrived just in time for it actually opening at 9. This was handy as it gave us a chance to give the place a once over whilst half the stalls were still setting up, and the market was still fairly quiet.
Four hours and probably several hundred stalls later, we made our way back upstream, passing by the hoards of punters coming off of tour buses, and I got to thinking about markets back home. Certainly Camden and Spittalfields are always crawling with tourists, but what about the Barras? Does Lonely Planet Glasgow list it as a must see? I haven’t been there in years - and I mean years as in the last visit I remember we were buying pirated floppy disks with Atari ST games for £2.50, maybe £2 depending on how good Dad’s haggling was that day - but I think I’ll definitely make a trip down there when I get back to Glasgow, just to see how it compares to the markets I’ve been kicking around in London and the rest of the world in the last few years.
