Today is about JJ Weekend Market. Opening at 9, we take the BTS train and get there right on time. It is large. It is already getting busy. And it is going to be a great day of wandering and shopping!

We don't have anything particular in mind. After a few silk stops, we decide to go back to Pratunam this afternoon to buy those souvenirs. The quality is better there and so is the price. This sight, however, is amazing. This is a once in a lifetime shopaholic experience. Thousands upon thousands of stalls. From really antiquish looking stuff to new pots and pans. From fine art to cheesy mass pruduction. From food to friendly smiles and from engaging yet not pushy merchants to too many visitors that somehow find a way to temporarily live in the very confined space together. Laid out across 28 sections, with each section broken down into streets, the footprint of this market is massive. Love it!!!

We entertain negotiating for a large (20-ish inch diameter) dinner gong. Wouldn't it be cool to sound the gong at the lake to let people know we are open for happy hour? It would. Would we? Absolutely! Would people more than a house away hear it and respond to it? Doubtful. We move on.

By pure happenstance, we step into a lady's shop that holds just a few interesting kalagas for sale. A wall mural, finely decorated with shiny embroidery and lightly stuffed images of elephants, Buddha, demons, serpents, dancers, or whatever the story is about. We had agreed to look for one, and so we take note of the section, street and stall numbers and keep looking for other kalagas to get a basis for comparison. We walk about 2/3 of the market and find only brand-new and somewhat cheesy kalagas, much less expensive, and none even remotely as interesting and intricate as what we saw in section 8, soi (street) 15, stall 382. So after a few hours of chows and wandering, we go back to our lady at 8/15/382 and put on our best smiles and negotiate the beautiful kalaga. She didn't give a baht. Not a single one. We take a close look, decide we really like it, and put down the amount she didn't move off of. Maybe we could have taken some off, maybe we were too obviously liking the piece, and maybe, just maybe, the $20 we may have overpaid does so much more for her than it does for us. Sure, she won. But so did we. This piece is beautiful.

We make our way back to Pratunam by sky train and set our sights on silks. We drift a little bit, knowing the shop we want to find but not taking note yesterday where it kind of was. We find it. We learn a little bit more about real and real-real (and the price difference between the two) and then buy a few things while negotiating a good discount. It helps that someone came in after us who negotiated a great discount before we took our turn.

A full Thai body massage is worth every one of the $6 you spend on the hour. Sure, it feels a little weird having a massage right there in the mall, but your feet will thank you after carrying your weight for a day! We certainly enjoyed it and it made for an easy transition to dinner and packing. We accumulated a few things, so the extra bag has come out and is in play now.

We are ready for Cambodia.