Inspiration at Chatuchak

I love a good marketplace and try to go visit them whenever I can when I’m a new country. Of all the markets I’ve been to in the world, one of my favourites is Chatuchak in Bangkok. It’s 27 acres of pure story inspiration. In fact, one of the key scenes in my new book, Kendra Kandlestar and the Search for Arazeen, was directly inspired by Chatuchak.

I took my wife there on the weekend between our work at ELC school as artists-in-residences. Since I had been there before, I knew how to prep Marcie for the crowds, the heats, and the simply overwhelming amount of merchandise.

Here is the view coming out of the BTS (metro) station:

You can’t really see the market from here, but you sure get a sense of the hubbub.

Here’s a few pictures of the market itself, including us traipsing around inside of it:

You can buy pretty much anything at Chatuchak. And I mean anything. We found dwarf bunnies wearing dresses. We found swords. We found Coca-Cola in glass bottles (in my opinion, everything tastes better in glass bottles).

And, of course, we bought a lot of stuff, too. Well, mostly Marcie. As for me, the main thing I bought is a traditional horn. I’m currently writing a book with a character who uses a horn, and this reminded me of him. And I thought the designs were beautiful. I can’t wait to get this displayed in my studio, but here is a picture of it for now.