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We publish regular articles on life, change and living in Thailand.

At The End Of The Day

Today was hot. The morning mist was hanging around the mountains for a while but by mid morning it had been burnt away revealing a perfect blue sky. It’s a lovely time of year here at the moment….not too hot and not too cold. The most noticeable thing is that the evenings and nights have got a lot hotter. It’s very comfortable, even on my motorbike.

I’ve just got back from the market, it’s Saturday night and almost 9pm. I got there late tonight as I wanted to welcome a new guest at the airport. As I drove back out of town I realized the market would be closing away. I like this time in the market, there’s a relaxed air about it all. The busy shoppers have long gone giving way to odd waifs and strays and general late comers. There’s an interesting, but limited range of things to buy and the stall holders are usually drinking beer with big chunks of ice, casually packing away their wares chatting to friends or talking on their mobiles. Their working day is really done, they just leave out the things they can’t be bothered keeping, or that wont save till tomorrow.

I wandered around enjoying the strange feeling of being one of the last at the market on a Saturday night. Nobody’s really interested if they sell anything to me or not, anything sold now is a bonus. I walked up and down the lanes accompanied by Thai pop music that was blaring from cheap radios behind most stalls.

My only disappointment was that “my” rice stall had finished long ago, all the other stalls that sell rice are ok but not as good as the stall that only sells rice. They cook it to perfection and usually have a selection of 3 different types, warm sticky rice, fluffy jasmine rice, and wild brown rice. All of them are excellent. This evening I’d have to make do with some sticky rice from the cooked vegetable and spicy sauce stall. This stall is usually a hive of activity but tonight the 3 ladies were sitting behind all talking animatedly on their phones. I bought a bag full of steamed green vegetables, some sticky rice and a small twist of devilishly spicy red chilli sauce.

I wandered around at he back where the sea food stalls are and bought a bag of steamed green lipped mussels and a small bag of homemade sour and spicy green dipping sauce. The sauce is made fresh each day by an old lady who crushes the ingredients in a huge old stone mortar. She throws in handfuls of basil, green chillis, garlic, shallots, a little palm sugar and white vinegar to achieve the right consistency.

The stall that I usually go to that sells grilled pork and chicken had run out of both but still had a few sausages. I bought a sausage that automatically comes with a big complimentry handful of crispy cabbage, sliced raw ginger and extremely hot tiny green chillis. This and a 5 baht bag of rice is probably the best and cheapest meal in the market. It’s a favourite option if you’ve spent all your wages on Thai whisky… which thankfully I’ve never quite got around to doing.

By the time I left, the market was quite a different place. Many stalls had vanished completely and the lights were being turned off. A team of cleaners that I don’t usually see were making their way around the aisles with heavy duty brooms and buckets of water making sure that the debris of a busy Saturday was well and truly cleaned away.

As I walked out into the still warm night the bars around the market twinkled with thousands of fairy lights, Thai pop music blared, and Premiership football was on large TV screens. People were drinking and having fun, shouting at the football and teasing each other. In the background the dark shadow of the mountain was just visible and the small lights of the temple on the top glinted through the darkness.  I drove off on my motorbike round “the back way” past the yard that makes large cement ornamental Buddha’s and the row of pretty vegetable gardens by the river. I was looking forward to getting home, the green lipped mussels and my spicy sausage dinner and began thinking about what I would write for the Life Change Blog this week.

Bye for now.

Alex.