Marketing

On January 31st we slept in, did some internet nonsense, figured out how to get to Sukhothai the next day, and then went to check out the "Sunday Walking Street". This turns out to be fancy talk for "another night market but one with rather more foreigners". Probably due to the presence of so many "rich" (by local standards) foreigners the sunday walking street vendors are FAR less willing to negotiate substantial price decreases, particularly during the early evening. The street operates roughly from 4pm until 11pm or so.

 

 

One of the more novel things on sale was soap flowers. These are hand-carved out of soap, painted, and placed into a small round container (a hemisphere base plus another hemispherical lid).

In the food "court" many novel items of varying appeal were on sale. The best by far was juice and smoothies made on the spot from fresh fruit for a cost of $1 or less.

As it began to get dark we headed into the main drag. This is a seemingly endless series of often near duplicate stalls that is packed shoulder to shoulder.

If you branch off the main street you get into slightly less crowded blocks of stalls, walk along for a bit, then eventually head back into the endless main street. Along one such side-street we ran into a lady selling some novel bamboo pots and painted coolie hats. We bought one but it is a bit fragile so we think it likely that when we finish our vacation we will own "parts formerly comprising a cool coolie hat".

As everybody knows, children are adorable. It therefore stands to reason that child street performance will be more endearing and likely more profitable, almost regardless of the talent level of the performer.

Towards the end of our street walk we bumped into a chap selling ships! Apparently him and his brothers got into this some time ago, found the things sell, and kept at it.

One of the scarier things to eat we saw was a black gelatinous mound of "Vegetable Jelly Made by Chinese Plant Black in color".

After a little more browsing we were heavily laden with purchases and stopped at a bar to grab a bite, rest our feet, and plot our next move. We all turned out to be in the mood for western food and ordered a hamburger and fries. In all cases this meant a bun with a slice of lettuce and a burger similar to a cheap one from a freezer pack at the supermarket plus exactly six fries. If you were lucky all six were big fries!