Day 12

SUNDAY 14th and a late walk to the Sunday Market in Walking Street which was very crowded compared to our visit last week. We began at the statue of the 3 Kings and then went walkabout in a different direction heading towards another Temple where at the end of the line of stalls a very young girl dressed in traditional dress with her hair beautifully adorned with a spray of orchids was performing a traditional dance. We stayed a while to watch her and as he was collecting for a children’s charity made a donation. All around the market young people were showing placards of photos of the flooded regions in Thailand and asking for donations to help the children. We thought we saw a demonstration taking place but the group moved on as we approached them. We saw them much later in a different part of the market and they were advertising a craft market to be held during the Lantern Festival. We were getting hungry and the stalls had some lovely food on display but we chose to eat in a small Lanna restaurant that also had Loas and Vietnamese food. Today we were out of luck with our choice of Vietnamese food – they either didn’t have it or it too long to prepare – so it was chicken for us both in different styles accompanied by an egg salad. Back into the masses and then a voice said “hello”. We couldn’t believe that in all these people we should meet up with the American and his girlfriend who we had travelled by from the Temple with yesterday. They were looking for somewhere to eat and so we let them get ahead as we browsed some of the stalls. Keith found a musician’s stall with CD’s for sale and as we could listen to them bought what we hope will be good background music to his video. We did stop to by a couple of banana spring rolls dredged in icing sugar and given a choice of syrups we chose to have honey on it. It was delicious and I could have eaten more – I can do these at home!
Earlier we had set out to find a photo shop that would print a couple of photos for me. The first shop we tried sent us down the road to some place we weren’t sure of but the next place we came to no one seemed to be about so we walked out and headed into the Night Bazaar building where most of the shops and stalls were closed. A photographic studio was open and it advertised printing. So producing my stick with the 2 photos I wanted printing we followed a ‘lady boy’ into the shop. In the main room a woman was being made up for a photo shoot whilst in the studio itself another woman was just about finishing her session. She looked amazing dressed in traditional sarong and adorned with lots of gold jewellery around her hair, and especially her arms. She also wore emerald earings and a heavy necklace and matching ring. The young photographer saw to us and we sat and watched proceedings in the studio and him at work on the computer. Earlier clients again attired in traditional costumes were being ‘touched up’ that is grey hair darkened, wrinkles and double chins removed and any other facial blemishes. The results were very impressive and he did it so quickly. He told us he had studied photography at college and had been working at this studio for 2 years where he had learnt to use this particular editing programme. My pictures were of mother and baby from the small restaurant close to the tailors shop that Keith is using and came out lovely but the photographer thought the one year old was my grand daughter.