Bangkok Day 2

After checking off the big sites yesterday, Beth and I headed for a few places more off the beaten path today.  Figuring we should take advantage of it being a weekend, we first visited the Chatuchak Weekend Market.  This chaotic market is blocks long - full of clothes, jewelry, dishes, food, soaps, paper goods, exotic fish, and more.  It's geared more towards Bangkok residents than tourists but still sells plenty of tee shirts/flowy pants covered in elephants too (Beth and I resisted purchasing any so far).  It was interesting eye-shopping and people watching.

My favorite part may have been that it was adjacent to a botanic garden with beautiful Thai flowers in bloom and a musical fountain in the middle of the pond.  Thumbs up to Queen Sirikit's park.

We enjoyed the air conditioning and efficiency of the Skytrain for much of the day yesterday.  Much better than dealing with taxis who don't know where your hotel is/try to scam you out of using a meter, and getting stuck in Bangkok's infamous traffic.  Thai folks queue up near each door to get on the train. It's so orderly and unlike any other public transportation system I've been on where people just push to get on the train.

Did you know that former Illinois governor Jim Thompson has a house in Bangkok?  Well, he doesn't really, but another American with the same name did set up a traditional Thai home here during/after WWII when he was first stationed here as a spy and then became the first major exporter of Thai silk to the US. Since he was an avid collector of Thai art and artifacts, his house became a museum after he mysteriously disappeared and was presumed dead.  It was fascinating to watch someone demonstrate how to get the silk off a silkworm cocoon to be used for fabrics.  The pic below with the yellow and white balls is the desilking process.

One of the top Trip Advisor sites in Bangkok is the Siam Paragon mall, and since we were nearby at Jim Thompson's house, we figured why not visit even though we can go to malls all the time at home.  It was indeed a pretty cool, modern mall, full of nearly any type of  restaurant you could want in the food court (incl many American chains), tons of high end stores on the lower levels, and normal mall stores like the Gap on the upper levels.  I'm not sure I would rank it as a must see in Bangkok, but maybe if you come from someplace without nice malls it would be more stunning?  I enjoyed checking out the food at the gourmet market, seeing both the exotic as well as the stuff we can get at home (Earthbound Farms organic lettuce was prominently featured).  Also, the air conditioning was top notch.  It's hot and humid here in Bangkok.