B A N G K O K C L E A N S E (三)

It's almost like a must-do when travelling different countries to visit their respective Chinatown, especially when I'm on a family holiday. My parents love it. Bangkok's Chinatown was a mixture of warm-coloured neon Chinese and Thai signboards, all stacked on top or behind each other. It was filled with overpowering stimuli, just like anywhere else in Bangkok, really. (Seems as though that's mainly the way I describe Bangkok to be: stimulus stimulus stimulus) It's just hard to take in that much sensory exposure in such a short amount of time, immersing in the atmosphere may be a little too intense to really comprehend everything. The only thing I knew that I was immersing in was the freaking 35 degree heat in Chinatown.

To fully experience the liveliness when in Chinatown, night time is generally the best time to be there. The streets are extra crowded, with stall vendors shouting out their menus, streets flooded with foldable tables and chairs occupying almost every lane off the main road. We went there once in the evening and decided on going back there again to see what Chinatown was like in the day. 

B A N G K O K C L E A N S E (二)

Chatuchak Market.  I don't even know where to start about how I feel towards this market.

1. It's HUGE. Just google up the map of the market and be prepared to be blown away. 

2. It's always crowded and hot.

3. They have these pet sections (soi 8, 9, 11, 13) that really irks me and it's really disheartening how tourists would think this is "cute" or acceptable for them to treat the animals like that, with such crappy living conditions. All that rant for another day.

4. They also have clothing sections like soi 5 & 6, which are my heaven. 

5. Soi 6 is my top favourite because there are just heaps of vintage clothes to plough through each store. 

6. Coconut ice cream and the duck leg noodles make the trip here all worth it. 

7. Bargaining allowed. (even though I am shit at it, it's always a plus to be able to pull out the still-a-student-so-im-still-broke card. It works on some of them)

B A N G K O K C L E A N S E (一)

I'm back! Finally finding the time to update this space after exams and a shitty semester. All that aside with my semester's reflections chucked into another post, I've been meaning to blog about my short trip to Bangkok last week. 

I made a mental note to learn how to use the complicated DSLR, in order to try to take some nice pictures while in Bangkok. It's never too late to try, right? Countless of times when we're on a family trip, it was always my dad that had the handycam permanently glued to his right hand. But as he's grown older and we've grown up, he now uses his right hand to hold onto my mother's shoulders for support because of his hip and knee problems acting up, due to the excessive walking in Bangkok. Hence, Josh and I decided to step up our photography game by just a bit. Documenting travels is not an easy feat. 

It's not much, and I wasn't expecting much, but I just wanted to capture and process photos that were reminiscent to the things we felt and saw in Bangkok, despite the short trip.