Tha Thewes Market

It smells like the old rotting shed behind my grandparents’ house. Dank and dark and mysterious, full of ancient secrets. The heat of countless tropical afternoons has cured the peeling, wooden walls with the stench of meat, the essence of animal byproducts; decay. Wooden pallets stacked in a dark, cobwebbed corner and countertops resting clean and bare in the afternoon’s lull mark the industry of this building, but reveal nothing of its purpose. The market’s smell has permeated the very foundations of this building, though, and I know that human activity, if absent from this room, simmers in the sun, one room over.
In the main part of the Tha Thewes market, motorcycles buzz through the foot traffic, somehow spilling neither strapped-down contents from the seat nor stalls, nor pedestrians in their blue, fumey wake. The frequent disturbances fill the aisles with sound and exhaust, held heavily in the air by the moisture, the humidity of the Phra-- river. But these mechanical puts and gurgling are not the only sounds.
These chambers of secrets sparkle like Ali Baba’s thieves’ den; crackle with shopping bags, plastic wrap, static radios. There is a cacophony of human voices, like Bable, all are communicating without attention to what’s being said by others. The rising, throaty “ng” sound of consonants close and unheard in English, the nasal, happy “sawadee” called out in greeting reach me through the din, remind me of where I am in time and place. I bite into the smooth, snow-white squid on a stick purchased upon entry, enjoying the chewy texture, the spicey, clean taste, the possibility of fresh seafood. As I browse the stalls looking for nothing and finding everything, I am jarred for a minute by the beautiful chaos of the atmosphere and the lack of urgency I feel. Even in the scramble, I feel alive, unhurried, almost… calm. When was the last time a stop at the “market” was like this at home?
Home.
Back in Chicago, where shopping for groceries, clothes, planting supplies-- whatever-- is anything but unhurried and exciting. Home, where ceilings of false lights and immaculate floors trap me and tarnish me more than any corrugated tin ceiling or cement walkway here ever could. The aisles of my local Jewel-Osco grocery store, the levels of products at Target--when was the last time I cracked a smile in the crowds of scowling faces, the noise of screaming babies, the noise in my own head?
At home, also near the water’s edge (this water being Lake Michigan, not -- river), I scurry through aisles crowded with cans, bags, boxes, people, things, displays of stuff, stuff, stuff, STUFF, looking for something, but finding NOTHING, wasting a whole day among the masses. Here, a day in the market, a day of nothingness, a day “wasted” is not a waste, but a lesson in culture, history, language, life. Here, everything is “sanuk,” the Thai word for fun. Everything is an experience, a reason for celebration, an opportunity to learn and let go. Even though I have seen this in action on the streets, in the backpackers mecca of Khao San Road, or the bars late at night, it is in this moment of activity that I really realize just how fun life can be here. If you can just let it be.
Caught up in this epiphany, I bump shoulders with a fellow shopper, a fellow female. “Mai pen rai,” we call out in apology. “Nevermind.” No problem, no big deal. Here, a bumped shoulder is simply that, not a bumped ego or a damning accident as it often is in Chicago.
Buddhists adhere to living in the present, as it is all that exists. Not the past, it is behind you. Not the future, it is not yet here. Just what is here, now, in front of you.
In front of me, I see chilies spread on a wooden counter, glowing reds and muted browns drying in front of me. Chilies so hot they rival the 90+ degree heat I’m growing accustomed to.
My second meal here, a hot, hot dish of pad thai cooked on the street, plagued me twice. Once, before the liquid wash of Singha beer could quench it, and once the next day, as I sweat it out in a hangover dimmed only by the liters of water I gulped down while walking around the temples.
The chilies in this booth are in various stages of freshness and preservation, and if I lean down and away from the fish and snails and shrimp next to them, I swear I can feel the heat of their oil in the burning, red aroma that enters my nose. Saffron, seafood, basil and garlic; these are the scents of the market. Layered with the exhaust, sprinkled with sweat, they all paint a vivid, olfactory panorama across my mind.
A motorcycle veers toward me, marks my left leg with its splatters of water trickling slowly below my feet. As much as the market is a combination of kitchen, shed, fragrant garden or livestock pen, it is not at all dirty. For the Thais, cleanliness is next to, well, holiness, at the least. Temple admission is gained only with the removal of shoes; covered heads, clean aprons, spotless dishes glisten in each eating establishment-- even the street stalls-- I visit. This passing motorcycle, then, splashes me not with street muck or sludgy water, but mists of the overflow of a stall washed clean, buckets rinsed and restored as the evening’s traffic nears the space.
As I prepare to leave, exiting the way I came in (this labyrinth of stalls and walls and people could make that hard) the warm, earthy core of the earth’s produce catches my nose. These upshoots of inner germination-- mushrooms--are laid out in neat rows and clusters before me. I could spend hours at the exit, eyeing each smooth cap, each dark, fragile filament of spore lining, but because the rest of the city beckons, my experience with the market ends with the brilliant hues of metallic sarongs, in fabrics whose colors rival the rising sun’s glow or soft pastels of the swollen moon. Only here would the fashions of the day be stacked next to the tumbled tangle of mushrooms and onion roots, the shimmer of street fashion neighboring the activity once bustling underground. Terrycloth as soft as the downy lining of a bamboo mushroom stem moves soft and silent under my fingers, ending the tactile thrill of taste, touch, smell and sound that has been my experience of the Tha Thewes market.

Nights and days

I knew there was a reason I hadn't been able to sleep for the past two weeks prior to my trip. I'd joked about resetting my internal clock on my own, to circumvent the jet lag, and what do you know, I really did get into my own sort of shifted "circadian rhythm."

A circadian rhythm is a roughly-24-hour cycle in the physiological
processes of living beings. this includes plants animal sna fungi as well. The term
"circadian" was appointed to a shift in waking-hour patterns by Franz Halbergbut comes from the Latin circa, or "around" and diem, which means "dies" or "diem." This literally then, means about a day.
diem or dies, "day", meaning literally "about a day." The formal study of this condition (chronobiology) is mostly caused by shifts in daylight patterns, and is what seems to cause jet lag.
After pulling an all-nighter, sleeping as soon as I got on the plane in Chicago and then napping at the appropriate times on my flights, I managed to wake up and go to sleep at all the right times en route. A quick nap while waiting for Kyle's flight killed the time and headache I was working on. Jet lag nothin'! I'm on track with the time change already, up at 6 am while he's still sleeping the morning's brief coolness away.