Thursday, April 15

Today we headed to the Khlong Toei wet market. And, um, if you don't like seeing pictures of butchered animal parts and/or live animals in somewhat grim circumstances, then you might wanna skip this post.

Khlong Toei is one of the biggest markets in Bangkok. The name literally means “Pandan Leaf Canal,” but you don't smell pandan leaves when you enter—rather, the air is thick with the odor of animal blood, fish, and rotting vegetables.

The market is big and intense (and it wasn't even as crowded as it usually is, due to the holiday). It also has an amazing array of goods. They sell all kinds of fresh fruits, including durian, pineapple, mangoes, oranges, apples, pears, limes, guava, coconuts, rambutan, papaya, rose apples, bananas, melons, and dragonfruit.

I took pictures of these exotic fruit called...oranges

We saw more vegetables than I could name, including bitter melon, cucumber, bok choy, asparagus, many different varieties of mushrooms, eggplants, tomatoes, cabbage, longbeans, chilies, and all kinds of different greens and herbs—mostly mint, dill, and cilantro.

I didn't ask for photo permission, and just surreptitiously took pics on my phone,
which I feel a little sheepish about 🐑

We also saw pickled mustard greens and bamboo shoots, and buckets of fermented crabs and fish—and I have to say, seeing a bunch of fermenting seafood sitting in giant plastic buckets in 100 degree heat made me think a little differently about the fermented crab, fish, and shrimp paste I have eaten on many occasions here without question. However, I am 100% not going to stop.

The meat and poultry vendors sell all kinds of things, though mostly derived from chickens and pigs. The chickens are often (dyed?) yellow and are trussed up on tables, often above cages full of live chickens.

You can buy seemingly any kind of animal part—the very top 2-inch section of the chicken wing, chicken hearts and livers, and every cut of pork, as well as pig stomach, heart, face, ears, tongue and I-don't-know-what.

Quail or maybe pigeon, frogs

The meat vendors all use red umbrellas, so some of these shots look rather blood-rinsed

Tongue

Large hearts; less familiar parts

The seafood sections may be the most lively part of the market. As you walk through the stalls, live fish occasionally flop their way out of the display trays onto the cement floor, and the shopkeepers casually walk around to pick them up and toss them back into their flat wet prisons. As you walk past the seafood carts, you also hear the thwack, thwack, thwack sounds of the fish vendors hitting the live fish hard against the counter—to either stun or kill them for a sale.

See the one at the bottom of the picture who made its escape

We also saw lots of shrimp, crabs, and clams.

We saw whole preserved fish, as well as filleted fish drying in the sun.

We also saw many small cages full of chickens, ducks, and geese, which was a little disturbing—they're crowded very closely together, and, like I mentioned, the cages are usually set up under displays of slaughtered birds. I mean, I'm not gonna get all judgey about it, but I did feel for those creatures.

We also saw live turtles and frogs for sale.

I schemed a little bit about buying some turtles and freeing them (which is apparently a practice some Thai Buddhists do, as a way of making merit) but didn't follow through.

Anyway, after...well, not that long in the market, we started getting super overheated. Even though most of the market is covered, it gets hot under those clustered umbrellas, and we were getting a little bit heat strokey under our masks. We stopped at a nearby 7-Eleven to pick up several beverages, and then sat in a small green area outside a nearby apartment complex to cool down.

By the time we finished all our drinks, we both needed a restroom, but there were no public restrooms in sight. And the area was surprisingly devoid of any cafés or restaurants where we could stop in for something to eat or drink and use their restroom. I was getting a little antsy—I wanted to spend more time in the market, but couldn't last much longer.

We took another wander through the market, and I never thought I'd be so happy to spy this!

We each paid 5 baht to use the restroom (which I think was a men's restroom—we saw the women's after we came out, but whatever) and then felt so much better!

We explored more of the market, and picked up some jackfruit stuffed with sticky rice, fresh flowers, and a bundle of pandan leaves.

We also checked out stalls selling fresh eggs, chili paste, big bags of fried treats, and jars fulls of cookies, candies, and crackers.

Back at home, I showed off my bouquet of pandan leaves...

All the street carts near the house were closed, so we picked up a couple things for lunch at 7-Eleven. I had a funny lunch of cooked Japanese sweet potato and an onigiri...

Lunch displayed in front of the flowers I bought at the market

And Roman had a bowl of cheese-flavored spicy ramen.

I spent the afternoon working on this blog, and attempted to make a version of the water they used to serve at Pok Pok (and yes, I realize there's something funny about the fact that I am in Thailand trying to recreate something I had in the US that was an American's interpretation of Thai food. But I like the water). They used pandan leaves to flavor it, which gave the water a faint perfume of toasted rice. I don't quite understand the mysteries of the pandan leaf—it is used in lots of desserts here, lending a bright green color and a vanilla-like flavor...but in the Pok Pok water it tastes like toasted rice? I looked up the best (only?) recipe I could find online, then completely disregarded it.

It turned out super strong and a little grassy-tasting, but with the addition of, like, two parts plain water to one part pandan water, it was pretty nice.

In the evening, we walked to the street food carts nearer to Soi Sathon, taking our newly-discovered path through Suan Phlu Park.