i spent yesterday lost in the market alleys of the indian neighbourhood of phahurat, and then into the chinatown markets, nursing a beaten and bruised body. that morning i took the riverboat express up city to the famous wat pho temple and cut through the gawking tourists, straight to the famed, traditional thai massage school. it can be hard to find a legit massage here. most come with "happy endings." but here it's all good. it is a seriously rough massage, though. the theory of thai massage is that you stretch the muscle, while pushing into it at the same time. it becomes a bit of a wrestling match. and it hurts. my masseuse asked my every few minutes if i was okay. guess i was wincing and moaning too much.
anyway, the markets were really crazy. narrow alleys, with stores flooding out, leaving a gap of maybe two or three feet, for a few kilometers. you could not see the sky through the overlapping awnings. could never move faster than a slow shuffle. i really have never seen so much conspicuous consumption. total junk. stores full of knock off hello kitty purses. plastic jewelry. stickers. every once in a while an old vespa would squeeze through somehow and you would be breathing in his smoky exhaust for the next five minutes.
i suffered through all this in the search for Chinese funerary paper. on the seventh day after a wealthy Chinese person has died the grieving relatives will burn paper versions of worldly goods. paper shirts. paper suits. paper cars. paper high heel shoes. paper stereo. paper jewelry. paper SUV's. paper cellphones. paper tooth paste. paper dentures. it was all life size (except the SUV's, unfortunately) and colourful. it was worth the endless toil in the end. they were beautiful sculptures. maybe one day someone will burn them for my after i pass from this strange world. the custom is dying out. i went by the local temple tonight looking to watch the burning ceremony, but it was deserted.