Good Friday Weekend in Bangkok

[kltower]

Dear All,

I was in Bangkok to spend the Good Friday weekend. I managed to pick-up some cheap Air Asia tickets, way back in August, so Red Shirts or not, I was determined to go.

Now, I have heard alot about Air Asia seats - like they don't recline and have very little leg room. I guess it doesn't really matter if you have to sit upright when the flying time from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok is only 2 hours. I have no problem with that. But not so for the tall American guy sitting next to me whose knees touched the front seat. He was clearly feeling very uncomfortable.

On my last trip I discovered a place that served very delicious pork rice. Only 40 baht (RM4/USD1.30) a plate. But that was not why I came back here for. While you can get sticky mango rice all over Thailand, this must be the only place that also serve the sticky rice with delicious durian sauce. I had two bowls at 20 baht (RM2/USD0.60) each and ordered another two servings as take-away.



While waiting for the connecting skytrain to Chatuchak market, I witnessed some Red Shirts joining up with their comrades at the upmarket commercial district. There were drum beatings and hornings, and flag wavings - very carnival like.



Unlike the last trip, this time the only carnivorous plants sold in the plants section of the Chatuchak market, were nepenthes. The nepenthes sold were mostly hookerina, viking, mirablis, gracilis, and miranda/mixta.

However, I came across two stalls selling bare-rooted plants, freshly washed and sold by the bundles. They looked mirablis-like. But I suspect they are one of those newly described Thai species. The tendrils of these plants are long and some of the pitchers are really red. I am sure the plants were harvested from the wild as some of the pitchers were still clinging onto grasses.







It was a sweltering day at the market. I spent more money rehydrating myself with fragrant Thai coconut, freshly juiced tangerines, limes than on the plants I bought. For entertainment, you can watch a southern Thai muslim doing the "Teh-Tarik" (Pull-Tea) moves



or this spunky Thai lady with rasta hairstyle and heavily tattooed arms selling roast pork.



Am glad the trip was one week early, otherwise many places were off limit to a tourist like me.

Choong