Day 14 - Suan_Lum Night Bazaar

Our last night in Bangkok. We decided to go to the night market and see what was happening. Instead of walking we opted to take the Skytrain and then connect to the underground that stops right outside the market. The underground system is just as impressive as the Skytrain. Just as cold too as the Thai’s must set the Air-con to minus 5 degrees as standard.

The Suan-lun night bazaar is a strange mixture of market stalls selling all the fake brands, massage parlours and a huge entertainment area that features a stage with live music. One side of the entertainment centre is occupied with bars and the other by food stalls. Monica decided I would have to earn my food and drink by doing a little more shopping.


Suan-Lum Night Market.

We discovered the perfect way of haggling with the vendors. I made the mistake of looking at a watch. Not a bad copy of an Armani watch that I had been after. The vendor told me it could be mine for the princely sum of 1200 Baht. That’s a bit steep. The old calculator comes out from the vendor who was keen for me to put a figure in. The obvious mistake is to put half the amount in. “I can get that for a fiver in Turkey. I give you 250 Baht”. The vendor counters with 800 Baht. That’s still £16 for a fake watch. I played the game and typed 300 into his calculator. His next offer is 600 baht. Wow! A full 50% discount in two minutes. I never wanted the watch anyway so we politely declined and began to walk off. “OK Mister 400 Baht for a sale”.


Band plays at night Market.

With nothing bought again we headed for the entertainment centre for something to eat. The band was playing and the area was quiet busy with a good mixture of young locals and tourists. The band weren’t great but the atmosphere was. Waitresses buzzed by from competing bars trying to sell their wares. Early flight tomorrow so we kept away from the local stuff and called the Heineken lady over. We were tempted by the ingenious beer cooling system they had, but thought better off it.


Ingenious beer cooler.

To end the night we headed back to the Sukumvit area and found Cheap Charlies. This is a great shack of a bar which was packed. 70 Baht for a bottle of beer. Charlie shut the bar and started to clear things away at midnight. So our holiday in Thailand was brought to an end. A great first trip. Surely there will be more to follow.


Cheap Charlies.