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We got up early today as we wanted to visit the Chatuchack market, which Ste and Emma had told us about. It's a huge outdoor market with over 22,000 stalls, held on a weekend. We had to show our taxi driver where it was on our map - surely it's quite a famous market?! - and arrived nice and early. There were a few things we wanted to look for - mainly Tshirts and presents to take home, but we didn't desperately need anything, so we enjoyed browsing the many many stalls! It's a bit like a maze, with some shops outside and some inside, and you can pick up maps at the information booths, although I didn't see how a map would help - we just followed our noses!
We stopped at a food stall for some breakfast and spent about 3 to 4 hours there altogether. We all managed to buy a few things, even though the stall holders didn't seem to be up for haggling! We didn't buy any presents though - oops! We were all quite tired afterwards so caught a taxi back to the hotel to relax and sleep for a few hours in our lovely air-conditioned room!
That night we decided to visit the Backpacker ghetto that is Khao San Road. After another incredibly cheap taxi ride, we arrived at the bright lights, loud music and hawker stalls! It was quite a strange experience. I can see why a lot of people don't like it - it's not very authentic and there was the highest concentration of Western people we'd seen since Australia! Saying that, I quite liked the fact that everything was in one place - market stalls, bars, restaurants and food stalls. It's definitely worth a visit or two, but I'm glad we're not staying right in the m idle of it - we're only a £1 taxi ride away!
We were all starving so went to an Indian restaurant for some lovely curries! Afterwards, we visited an Irish bar for another 'tower' of beer, and spotted another ladyboy, again sat behind Chris - he must attract them! This one was a little more convincing but still had a manly face! The music wasn't really to our taste, so we soon moved upstairs where a live Thai rock band were playing Western rock songs. They played songs we knew and the bass guitarist was amazingly enthusiastic and entertaining! We shared a few boozy 'buckets', but I wasn't impressed with the 'Sangsom' bucket so had a cocktail instead. When we were kicked out at closing time, we went to another street-side bar, where Dave and Chris unsuccessfully tried to haggle for some free water or ice (you can't haggle in a bar!). Annoyingly, you had to go into a club next door to use the toilet. I was not very happy as I fought my way through the dancing crowds to the toilets at the back but while I was washing my hands I spotted 2 more ladyboys beside me and one of them turned to me and said 'You're so sexy!', which caught me a little off gurad so I just replied 'Thank you!'. I laughed all the way back outside to tell Dave and Chris!
We eventually made it back to the hotel and to bed at 5am! That's Khao San Road for you!
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