Rainy Day in Bangkok

As I was lying in bed reading and contemplating what I was going to do on this Saturday before the big Thanksgiving Party, I heard and saw the skies open up and it poured for I would say 30 minutes. It was magnificent as I lay in bed watching and hearing the rain. I can't remember if I ever slept in on a Saturday before so this was quite a special treat.

After the rain stopped, I planned to finally go downtown and I was determined to find Pratunam wholesale clothes market and Pantip, the electronics super centre I want to call it but it would be a complete misnomer since when you see the picture you will see it is not like a mall per se, but rather a series of storefronts like everywhere else in Asia ( with the exception of the 10 or so super plazas that are better than anything in Toronto in terms of size, pizzaz and quality)

Back to the story. I got dressed and went outside to try and get a cab. Even though it was not raining,getting a cab was impossible since the streets were covered with water. The infrastructure of Bangkok cannot handle water runoff and traffic slowed down to a crawl. When I finally did get a cab we went through the back streets, which was probably a mistake, and I would say we were driving through water over the tires of the taxi. It didn't take too long for the taxi to actually grind to a halt stranding me in the middle of nowhere. As I waded through the water looking for a main street I passed over a bridge (roadway) and peered underneath to see a squat little abode. It had nothing, but you can be sure there was a TV. Cars were roaring, well hardly roaring, but cars were driving on their roof, but they had the charcoal fire going and the tv, all that is needed to keep people happy it seems.

By the time I got to the plaza, after walking, it seemed, for hours, I was so exhausted I took a quick look and came home. I always find it fascinating to see wholesale to retail in one place. I walked down dark hallways in the wholesale clothes market and literally saw people making dresses and so on on single sewing machines, pressing them in the horrific heat and still smiling as they work about 15 hours a day. There were naturally cockroaches as well as babies sleeping on the floor.

In the electronics "mall" I can't believe any normal techno-geek would not love it. There were more stores selling the same thing than I have ever seen in my life. You could buy software, movies, machines that did everything except sing and computers "stuff" By this time, I was so tired I had to leave, but I am determined to go back and by the digital clock I saw where if you clapped your hands the colours of the clock changed. Loved it.

Tomorrow is Sunday and there is loads of things I have not seen or done in Bangkok so the adventure continues. Have to read the guidebook to see what I am going to do! Talk to you later.