Nobody enjoys shopping in the sleazy Patpong Night Bazaar. The temporary tables and stalls are crammed into the already crowded lane and spill onto the broken sidewalks of Silom Road. Vendors are pushy. Shoppers are constantly jostled by other shoppers, schlubby old sex tourists, drunker middle-aged ones, aggressive transsexual prostitutes, sex show touts, pimps, pickpockets, and ticked-off office workers struggling to reach the Saladaeng Skytrain station.
Silk and pashmina shawls, button-down dress shirts, beach shorts, T-shirts, handbags, wallets, hill tribe paraphernalia, underwear, jewelry, wooden toys, fake Rolexes, pirated DVDs . . . there's nothing wrong with the merchandise per se. Some of it will even look better at home. But there's nothing unique or especially cheap about it either. Throughout the day, precisely the same items are sold at stalls and shops along Sukhumvit Road and elsewhere in the city.
The three following markets all provide friendlier, less stressful shopping experiences. Suan Lum has all the usual souvenirs and some classier items. The next two markets are much more Thai.
Suan Lum Night Bazaar
Update 2012: The death knell finally came at the end of 2010. Suan Lum night market was closed. The replacement is supposed to be the new Siam Night Bazaar, also known as Punnawithi Night Market, around Sukhumvit Soi 101. Here's my very so-so assessment and directions. You might as well go to Onnuj, described below. On a weekend? Ratchada (farther below) is the most fun.
Let's not beat around the bush: Suan Lum Night Market or Suan Lum Night Bazaar was set up as a temporary tourist trap around 2001. Bangkok residents have gradually grown fond of it. For visitors who loathe shopping or are squeezed for time, this is the place to swiftly take care of all souvenir needs in one go.
The clean, well-lighted shops are laid out in strips, with covered sidewalks. Few vehicles are allowed on the paved roads in between. There probably are pickpockets here but it's tougher for them to get close. All the old favorites are here: pashimas, silk scarves, T-shirts, hill tribe clothing and pillow cases, toys, silver jewelry and colored gems. But there are also packaging services and bigger and more fragile products, such as ceramics, furniture, carvings, and lamps. Just because items in Suan Lum are more likely to be tagged doesn't mean that's the last price: As in all night markets, try to bargain.
A group in town for a conference or meeting can make a whole night of Suan Lum, combining shopping, entertainment and meals. On the same lot, there's the huge BEC-Tero auditorium, which sometimes stages internationally-known musical performers, although the nightly Joe Louis puppet theater is no more. The Lumpini Thai kicking boxing stadium is next door.
The restaurants are what draws in Bangkok residents. Some are open-air, but with overhead fans, so they're never too hot. There is also a beer garden, a shark's fin restaurant, a food court and high-end coffee bars.
Despite persistent rumors that Suan Lum is about to shut down, no end appears in sight in 2010. The landowner, the Crown Property Bureau, wants to develop the land into the usual luxury condo-hotel-shopping complex, but the middleman renter and the shop tenants have been engaged in a long-running contract dispute. It may be the only night bazaar with its own website
Hours: Daily, 5 pm to midnight.
Location: Rama 4 Road at the Sathorn Road/Wireless Road intersection. One exit from the Lumpini subway station empties right into Suan Lum. See also map on Suan Lum website. Suan Lum is on a large plot of land is east of Lumpini Park, across Wireless Road.
Onnuj Night Market
The location of Onnuj Night Market is very convenient, especially for those staying anywhere along Sukhumvit Road; this large market is located at the end of the Skytrain line. There's more elbow room than Khaosan and Patpong night markets here, but it's not up to Suan Lum standards.
The goods sold here are intended for the middle-class Thai shopper, so expect a lot of synthetics, designer knock-offs, costume jewelry, underwear. For new expats, some basic office-wear and housewares can be had. Then there's the large selection of secondhand shoes. (Good condition, some barely used--trainers, pumps, good quality leather shoes. But nonetheless, shoes? Where do they come from? Pawn shops? Are the high-end name-brand ones imported? Smuggled?)
Food: All the Thai basics, at stalls and under awnings, but no proper restaurants.
Hours: Daily, 4pm-10 pm
Location: On Sukhumvit Road, at the eastern terminus of Skytrain. Get off at the Onnuj station. The market is cross the street from Tesco-Lotus. Onnuj is pronounced "on-noot."
Ratchada Night Market
This intersection of very wide roads in the north of the city, Ratchada Night Market isn't a normal shopping grounds for Western tourists. But some big modern hotels on Ratchadapisek Road shelter group tours from China and South Korea. And clustering near the Ladprao subway stop are both closed and open-air restaurants that stay open very late. The Ratchada (or Rachada) night market stretches between the Ratchadapisek and Ladprao subway stations. In the Ratchadapisek subway station vicinity, there's beer, Mekong whiskey and often live music. The market now only runs on Saturday evenings, but the food joints are open other evenings as well.
Prominently featured sales pieces are machinery, vehicles, and motors and parts thereof. There's also flea market-cum-Chatuchak Weekend Market material that will be welcomed by eyes jaded by Sukhumvit and Patpong street stalls; these items include old clothing, new T-shirts, new and vintage furniture and household products. The subway station that serves the Chatuchak Weekend Market is Morchit, by the way, which is the next subway stop after Ladprao.
Hours: Saturdays, Sundown to 2 am.
Location: Ratchada-Ladprao intersection.
Subway station: Accessible from either Ratchadapisek or Ladprao subway stations, although the latter is the easier route. These subway stops are an quick jump for audiences coming out of Mama Mia! or some other evening performance at the Thai Cultural Center. Here's a map with both subway stops.
Susan Cunningham - I'm a well-traveled writer and editor living in Thailand. My travel articles have appeared in in-flights, newspapers and guidebooks.
