We started off the day by eating a fairly good breakfast included in our accommodation at the hostel, we’re not sure how 4 mornings of eggs and toast would go down! We spent a short while documenting the hostel downstairs as it really is a lovely space. Following on we took the number 56 bus to the Chatuchak weekend market which took around 45 minutes to get to. It’s a much cheaper option than taxiing or getting a tuk-tuk there and cost 26 baht between us. When we got there we went straight to the information office for a guide of the area, there are more than 8000 market stalls in a 35 acre area of land so we thought it would be good to know where we were going and plan our route.  We wanted to pick up a few items ready for the south and some replacement clothes for one’s we’ve been wearing over and over since we started travelling in October.

We started by exploring the vintage/second hand section which is any stylists and fashion designers dream. It houses anything from vintage tea dresses to leather bags, retro sports wear and re-worked seconds into new garments. It has to be said that the Thai’s on are top of their game when it comes to vintage trading, they know what sells to Westerners and they have a good depth of stock. Helen was very close to picking up some old tea dresses for when we get back home but managed to resist spending the pennies. We crossed through many fashion stalls and picked up sandals, shorts, t-shirts and vests whilst taking a few shots along the way.

The most memorable photo for us from this collection is of the giant tattooed man sleeping next to his market stall, surrounded by badges, paintings, bags and handmade crafts. He was covered all over in tattoos, piercing’s and leather and was disguised by the goods that swamped him…There were certainly many characters around. We walked by the music area and watched young children playing on their violins and we passed through the antiques section too. Seriously though you can buy pretty much anything you want at this market, we’ve read about illegal animal trading going on here too so if you do see anything you’re not happy about you can always report it to the police that patrol the site. We think we got what we wanted though with little fuss and enjoyed some decent street food too.

Later that night we took the ferry south and made our way to the flower market, it’s a 24 hour place with fresh flowers being prepared day in day out. If you get there late or very early in the morning it will be a real hive of activity. We got there at about 6.30pm at night and wandered through the street area and also some back street warehouses where we saw some of the work that goes on behind the scenes. We did want to go to other markets but with only one weekend in Bangkok most of the better markets take place on Saturdays and Sundays and there’s only so many markets you can get to in 2 days!

We ended the evening at a lovely restaurant overlooking the river right next to our ferry stop in Thewet, we had great views but the service was a bit of a mess, good job we weren’t in much of a rush.

We have known since our time in Japan just how much the Japanese love Halloween, from our first steps in Tokyo through to here in Kyoto there were pumpkins on street corners, halloween banners in food halls and fancy dress costumes on offer. Although the start to our day wasn’t particularly Halloween based we would experience more of this by the end of the day.

We had heard there was some bad weather on the way, the typhoon seemed to have missed this side of Japan but there were winds and rain to come, so after a filling and hearty breakfast from K’s – around £5.50 for eggs, toast, jam, cereal, fruit, yoghurt, juices, potatoes and frankfurters for the meat eaters we wanted to hire bikes again and set off around the city to do some historic Temple sight-seeing with the Golden Pavilion as our first port of call. It was a pretty long bike ride from the hostel and took over an hour to get there on our bikes, but we were enjoying taking in the streets around us, perhaps less so going up hills with no gears but all the same it was really good fun. We arrived at the Pavilion area and it started to rain, we hadn’t brought any brolly’s with us either so up went the hoods, plastic bags on the bike seats and we bought our tickets for the Pavilion. It was a real shame the weather was so poor, although it didn’t stop all the other hundreds of sightseers making their way to this site, it did mean we couldn’t get the best from our cameras and the Pavilion couldn’t shine in it’s full gold leaf glory. We find it hard to feel disappointed though as these things are always new to us and it’s all part of the experience being stuck in the rain at a world famous pagoda.

We thought it would take us a long while to get back so instead of going around the city as drowned rats we would just head straight back to K’s and then re-start the day when we had warmed up and dried off!! It took a further hour to get back and by that stage we were soaked, at the hostel they recommended we take a bath as otherwise they feared we would get a cold, so considerate of them! We opted for hot showers and cups of tea before deciding that catching up on photo-editing and blog writing would be a good idea. It’s very easy to fall behind with this!

So a couple of hours of editing, writing and joining in the chat with fellow travelers sitting out the rain and we were ready to go in search of a lonely planet recommended tea tasting ceremony a couple of tube stops away. It was still chucking it down but we were able to use umbrella’s from K’s (you can pick up a brolly outside anywhere and use it as long as it’s either returned or moved onto the next place for someone else to use). We arrived at En (the tea house) at 6pm on the dot, the last time slot of the day for the tea ceremony and were welcomed by a traditionally dressed young lady who welcomed us into the dimly lit tea room.

We were the only people in the ceremony so it was a really personal experience. She spoke to us about the history of the ceremony, that it is practiced as a form of meditation and conducted the ceremony, explaining that she would explain the process afterwards. It was a very heart warming experience with the sound of rain pelting down on the roof she quietly and smoothly went through the ceremony very methodically and in a way that was quite spell binding. She went on to say that an tea ceremony usually lasts around 5 hours and she would invite her friends round once a month to participate in the tea ceremony with her. The tea is green powdered tea and you whisk it up into a froth drinking it only when you have been invited to and after eating a Japanese sweet, that helps to take away any bitter tea taste. We each had a go at making our own tea and then asked her various questions and she posed for a few snaps for us. We felt really good after this, it was quite a calming experience.

We stopped off for a quick bite to eat at a local Thai restaurant on our way back and then joined in with the K’s Halloween party at the bar for an hour or so. Some of the staff did a performance and there were free sweets going around. The bar was packed and it was a good little atmosphere.

We didn’t stay out too late as on the list for the next day were a few trips where we would use our JR passes to get around.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)