mall crawling

Pathon Yothin intersection

they say it's a wireless world

jelly bean coloured taxis

I did a bit of shopping this afternoon and ventured out to the madness at the mall. There is no special reason for the madness. No holiday or special shopping day. It's always madness. Shopping is an olympic sport in Thailand. If there is a square inch of flat space available, a hawker stall or a pushcart will take root. The Thai passion for shopping never fails to amaze me. Shops dedicated to flip flops, hair bands or t-shirts manage to pull crowds. How exciting can a pair of frilly socks be? There must be hundreds of thousands of these virtually identical shops in the city and I marvel at their survival. A market base of 13 million people must be the secret.

Finding items in the grocery store takes some guess work and is an exercise in graphic design sleuthing. Sometimes I don't know what I will find inside the package. I came across an entire aisle of alms offerings. It is a buddhist custom to feed the monks and to provide gifts of useful items in exchange for blessings. This grocery store had their own line of "Temple Ware" and they carried everything from Monk packs to saffron robes, all done up in classic saffron.

pre-packed offerings

bucket 'o monk stuff