I continue with the story I started before:

Wanting to keep things varied for them, and knowing perfectly well how much these dear friends of mine love to shop, I took them to the grand Paragon mall.

It's enormous, and the Thais are quite proud that it's one of the largest in Asia.

It could only have been open a couple of years at that point. Beyond displaying every foreign luxury brand imaginable and jewelry you rarely see out in the open anywhere else (security being what it is in the world), the design, architecture, and touches of elegance make it genuinely beautiful and worth seeing.

My friends, the moment we walked in, disappeared into some store, I forget which brand, and I simply could not extract them. Eventually I managed it, and they got to see a bit more of the place.

We all ended up in the anchor department store, the kind of thing that in Mexico would be Liverpool, where they went absolutely wild with the ease and comfort that those stores offer.

Juan, Marcel, and Jenny also jumped in to take advantage of some good deals, and by the end, all of us exhausted with that glazed What? look on our faces, we went to dinner.

We chose a restaurant right there in the mall, one where we'd eaten very well in the past, though on this particular occasion it didn't quite live up to its former self, even if the setting was still nice. There was a trio playing classics, and honestly they were dreadful, absolutely butchering several well-known pieces. Even so, we filled our stomachs and talked.

In the blink of an eye it was Saturday the 7th, so as early as we could manage given the exhaustion and the still-scrambled schedules, we headed to Chinatown.

Once again we took our beloved (Juan's and mine, anyway) water taxi to get there. We began walking through those wonderfully typical, deeply Chinese streets. Nearly all the shop and restaurant owners here are Chinese or of Chinese descent, naturally.

This is a good moment to mention that if there is any people outside their own that the Thais genuinely admire, and whose customs they have absorbed, it's the Chinese. They have this reverence for pale skin (the Chinese ideal) that I find quite unsettling, honestly. Also for all things Chinese in general (that part doesn't unsettle me). Chinese immigrants always manage to make money in this country, and they tend to own many of the most important businesses. Money is always admired, isn't it?

When I buy face or body cream I have to be very careful, when I can actually read the label and it's not in Thai, that it doesn't say "Whitening," because everything here will bleach you. I, who am proud of my natural morena complexion, which has gotten even darker the way I like it and which takes real effort to keep even, never stop being surprised by this.

Here among the Thais I've found another people who don't share my compatriots' appreciation for darker skin, though back home it seems Mexicans are slowly getting over their own version of that hang-up.

The Thais walk around with umbrellas not just against the rain but to keep the sun off, and they slather on things that turn them the color of a ghost, all to protect their precious yellowish-white skin. In this neighborhood we all bought (and I include myself) an assortment of completely unnecessary things.

After a good long walk, photos, and shopping that had worked up an appetite, we stopped to eat at a lovely Chinese restaurant.

After lunch we somehow found a second wind, helped along by the Thai beers we'd had, Singha and Chang (chang means elephant in Thai), and went to see the famous solid-gold Buddha.

The temple that houses this incredible Buddha is called Wat Traimit, right there in the Chinatown neighborhood. It stands three meters tall and weighs 51 tons of solid gold. It has a radiance that takes your breath away. More photos, of the place and of all of us.

Next door, in another temple right there, we were lucky enough to witness a Buddhist monk initiation ceremony made up entirely of children.

Fascinating even for me, since I'd never seen one. We sat on the floor and watched for a good while, this interesting and, to us Mexicans, deeply colorful ceremony. All of it accompanied by the typical candles, lotus flowers, and incense always offered to the Buddha.

The children freshly shaved, wearing only their mustard-colored robes, with the typical terrified expression these poor creatures wear when they are introduced to their various religions, always chosen for them, of course, by their loving parents.

We finished the day at the pool, with some tequila and rum the friends had been kind enough to bring us. Not before, however, bailing out the water that had collected on our terrace, with the enthusiastic cooperation, photographs, and laughter of several of them.

In Chinatown we admired the street food, the herbs, the teas, and the enormous variety of things that even I, having been here a while now, don't always recognize.

What richness, in every sense, these Chinese have. It's not for nothing that so much of what gets claimed as European cuisine was brought there by Marco Polo and other intrepid travelers going back to the time of the great philosopher Herodotus.

Simple examples: pasta, pepper, and nearly every spice that the peoples who call themselves the civilized West use in their kitchens.

That night we still managed to go to a rather mediocre Kathoey (drag queen/transgender) show. The interesting part, here, is seeing how in a country where sexual differences and preferences are accepted, these performers hold a recognized place in society.

Before I go on, I want to open a small parenthesis to tell you that one morning when Adriana and I woke up early, I encouraged her to get dressed and come with me to the market I've mentioned that's near my house.

It was around 6:30 a.m., the hour when Buddhist monks all across Thailand go out to collect the day's food.

They are meant to eat only what people give them, and they typically take no more than two meals a day, so they can meditate without a too-full stomach.

It's a remarkable thing to witness, because even though I'm not devout about any of this, I keep finding myself drawn toward the spirituality in this religion (which is really more of a philosophy) in Thailand, more than I can say for the ones I know too well. At this hour the monks always go barefoot, always in their robes. They carry those typical copper vessels (you can distinguish the categories if you pay a little attention), into which people deposit food, money, flowers, and so on. I told Adriana not to take photos, and I've second-guessed that, since it would have been interesting. The thing is, I live here, I've come out to watch this before, and the people at the market know me. I don't want them to see me as the kind of "farang" (foreigner, in Thai) who wants to photograph everything by force.

I think that beyond this spectacle, Adriana also enjoyed watching the market vendors prepare food and the typical crepes sold everywhere here.

The Photos

To be continued.....

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