Wan di, wan mai di (part 12)

Although my wife is Buddhist and I no longer consider myself a Christian, Sunday can be called the standard day of rest of the week. That does not mean sleeping in late, because on Sundays we are usually wide awake at about half past six in the morning.

After having a leisurely breakfast, we don't actually do much in the morning. Sometimes the laundry has to be put in the washing machine, the condo is swept and the plants outside watered in the dry season.

We usually have lunch at the 'floating market' in our area. Tai (you know: the manageress of the Thai restaurant on the corner of the soi) also has a shop on the market and makes (good) pad thai there. My wife always eats noodles at the neighboring store.

We then leisurely stroll through the rest of the market, hardly buy anything and walk back home. Time for the afternoon nap, on a thin mattress in the living room. The TV is always on and sometimes it's so interesting (a good Muay Thai boxing match for example) that my wife doesn't fall asleep. I always left for dreamland in 5 minutes, to be honest.

To the market at Wat Gaew

Luckily I always wake up on time, so around four o'clock. Time to go to a big market near Wat Gaew temple. Sometimes grandmother's workers come along, sometimes not. Do they even sit in a taxi?

The market is large and in addition to the normal products for daily eating (meat, fish, eggs, fruit and vegetables, sweets, kitchen utensils) a large part of the market can be labeled as a flea market. And oh yes, I almost forgot the part where there is a brisk trade in Buddhist amulets and medallions. We always skip that part.

At the flea market, my wife mainly looks at the second-hand clothes; for herself but also for the workers, grandmother, children in a village near Udon Thani where friends of ours live. My wife is fashion conscious and knows most fashion brands by name. The sellers on the market usually don't. And so it happens repeatedly that she buys excellent designer clothes (not the latest fashion, but certainly not the oldest) for next to nothing.

She recently bought a real GAP dress for 20 baht. Looked it up on the internet later at home: 2600 baht. I don't look at the fashion vendors with the exception of the tie trade. Occasionally they sell them and here too they often do not know what they are selling. After two years I replaced almost my entire collection of old ties from the Netherlands with new ones from brands that I didn't buy in the Netherlands because I thought they were too expensive.

Three acquisitions from the flea market

I have attached a photo of three other acquisitions from the flea market. I bought the candlesticks next to the Buddha for 80 baht (together). Wooden base, wooden head and black cast iron in between. Simple design but I like them.

The second purchase is a folding, wooden fruit basket with mother-of-pearl inlay. A nice basket to put the bananas in. New ones are now on sale all over Bangkok for around 150 to 200 baht.

A third purchase were 5 pewter (glass) coasters. My wife didn't know what they were and apparently tin isn't very well known here either. The man who sold them asked 600 baht for it and – as a good Dutchman – I bargained and bought them for 400 baht (10 euros). They are undamaged, have an imprint of the atomium in Brussels and were made by the Belgian company 'Etains des Poststainiers Hutois'.

When I got home I was actually curious if this company still existed. And yes. They have a website and still sell tin, and coasters too. A set of 6 coasters in a holder can be ordered online for 72 euros (2800 baht). That was another fun afternoon talad What Gaew.

Chris de Boer

The condominium building Chris lives in is run by an elderly woman. He calls her grandmother, because she is both in status and in age. Grandmother has two daughters (Doaw and Mong) of which Mong is the owner of the building on paper.