Hat's the way to do it

It’s now Sunday and what better way to spend it by walking around Bangkok’s weekend market, once again we decide to avoid the traffic for the cheaper and cooler option, the subway, but first we need to go the hospital just around the corner from the hotel to get Trish’s mosquito bites looked at. We go in and explain the situation to the receptionist and ten minutes later we are seen, Trish gets hooked up to a blood pressure monitor and immediately they look concerned until explains she says it’s usually like that, after a while it drops a bit and the doctor seems less concerned and tells Trish that the bites are not infected and prescribes some creams, the visit cost £40, worth it to get the all clear when your just about to start your travels.

 The journey is quite far to the market so elbowing your way onto the train and getting a seat seems to be the only option. Once we arrive at Chatuchak station there’s a sign for the market so you can’t really get lost or you can just follow the steady stream of people heading in one direction, we do the latter and tag along, which is good because there’s sneaky shortcut through the park and into a market. The market seems the size of a small town with little alleyways running off everywhere, first thing we do is get out of the ferocious sun which now must be tipping the scale at 40c (around100f).

We meander round looking at the various stalls selling their goods that wouldn’t be out of place in the fashion houses of Paris or Milan, if you get my drift. Eventually I can’t take no more sun on my head and decide I need a hat, so we go up and down the market, more than once or we keep going past the same stalls, no idea where we are, orientation totally gone.

At last I see a nice straw trilby but the man wants 200 baht, not on my watch so I manage to knock him down to the princely sum of 180 baht, forty pence is better in my pocket especially now Brexit has begun, I’ve got a long way to go but now I can go there with my new hat.

After what seems like a couple of hours, which it probably was, we walk past a stall selling North Face bags, but us being us we dither and say we’ll come back later and head out down a side alley for a beer and some food. Now all bearings have totally gone so we settle for a cold beer at the nearest stall and work out where exactly we are. While we were having the beer we decide we now want the said bag, so set off once again into the labyrinth looking for a jarg (Imitation) bag, that is now the needle in the proverbial haystack. We spend an hour looking for it, up and down, everywhere now looking the same and just as we are about to give up we spot it and immediately haggle down the price to 450 baht and we are gone, looking for some much needed food. We see the skytrain in the distance and find the exit but it’s not the one we came in, but we follow the skytrain anyway, we have a fifty/fifty chance of going the right way. Twenty minutes later and thinking them odds have just got lower, we see the entrance we came in and sit down at one of the many food stalls there and have some chicken noodle soup, you know where you are with this, no coconut or strange exotic fruits, but once again being Billy Big Licks I put too much spice in and my head explodes for a minute, then I’m feeling good after my chilli rush.

We leave the market and decide to go straight to China town now smelling like ripe cheese, no good getting changed, we’re going tomorrow and plus everyone is in the same boat. Once in China town I order a big plate of king prawns that comes bubbling in a hot plate, Trish orders some noodles and vegetables, that didn’t need heating up, as they slowly worked their way up in your mouth till your tongue was numb and stayed numb for a while.

 After that we headed up the road to Tesco, yes the same Tesco as we have in the UK for a bottle of wine. When you enter the store it’s very much like Tesco in the UK, they have all the out of date yellow label bargains by the door only this Tesco sells things you wouldn’t dream of eating, no wonder they have yellow labels on them. We choose our wine, the cheapest, as it is so expensive all over Asia where beer is king or you go to Indonesia and you pay a King’s ransom, we pay and jump in a tuk tuk and make our way back to the hotel.

In the hotel I want to watch the League cup final between my beloved Liverpool FC or moneybags Manchester City on the internet at 12 midnight, it takes me thirty minutes faffing about to find a good stream, only problem now is no beer, and room service is closed, nothing for it, shoes on an over to the trusty 7-11 shop opposite the station, five minutes away. You would think it would be dodgy at night by Bangkok’s main railway station, Lime Street springs to mind, but no it’s chilled, no cars, just a few bars open with customers sitting outside chatting and drinking in the warm night air. I get my beers and make my way back to watch the match, which goes to penalties and is now eating in to sleep time, seeing we have go in the morning. Half two in the morning and a defeat for Liverpool I head to bed drunk and disappointed, but at least I’ll know it will be sunny in the morning.