Bangkok Post: Day 11

The weekend market of Chatuchak was on the cards for today. Since its only a weekend market, we had to spare either a Saturday or Sunday out of our 'visiting schedule'. Mami cautioned us that Chatuchak was infamous for pick-pocketting and so we had to be careful. We took the BTS Skytrain (BTS stands for Bangkok Transport System) to Mo Chit, the station where this market is located. Foreigners flock here during weekends to buy cheap goods and souveniers. Its a huge market selling everything from clothes, antiques, porcelain, flowers, food, ornaments, household accessories, decorative material, etc. Its a wholesale as well as a retail market with shops situated at the sides of narrow lanes, where only 2 people can pass simultaneously. Due to this the shops lack ventilation facilities, and covering the entire stretch of the market is a huge task.

But street food is rampant in this flea market. You can try all types of Thai street food here and also some varieties of street icecreams. People also perform on the streets, many play some or the other instrument, some show magic tricks... but they do not beg like beggars back in India. They are just engrossed playing their instruments, but not a voice asking for money at all. People give them money voluntarily, especially the foreigners. It was straining for us covering the market as much as we could.

In the evening, we came to Pantip Plaza from Chatuchak. Pantip Plaza is a huge computer market, with many computer companies selling their PCs, Laptops, accessories, hardware, software solutions and everything in the computer domain. The Plaza also has mobile sections where you could buy mobile accessories. But still, a major portion of the plaza is a heaven for computer geeks.

The front porch of Pantip Plaza had a surprise in store for me. In 1993 when I was in Bangkok, I had seen ice-cream sellers putting ice-creams in bread and selling them. That time I was not at all ready to taste such an odd combination, as I felt it to be. But this time, I wanted to taste this combination for the sake of curiosity of my taste-buds. Ever since the start of this trip, I was on the lookout for these ice-cream sellers (since not all ice-cream sellers offer such a combo). And I found one here, at Pantip Plaza. The ice-cream is sandwiched in the slit of a long bread, a little sweeter than the normal ones. In all, 8 small scoops were put inside it before garnishing it with roasted groundnuts & soaked and roasted moong dal. And it was done! I clicked a photo of this wierd ice-cream combination (see photo above), as we Indians would call it, and eagerly took a bite. The taste was not as wierd as I had expected it to be. It tastes a little like how ice-cream would go with a cream-less cake. For me, it was an okay taste, not too good, not too bad. But at the end of it I had the satisfaction of finally letting my taste-buds have a go at it!