Miniature World

January 10, 2026

Shopping in Bangkok

Dear little friends,

We had one more day in Bangkok to fulfill a few missions before leaving two duffels of stuff at the hotel and heading south. One of those missions was to do a little shopping because we could leave these new items with our duffels. Fiendishly clever, righto?

A few more photos of our hotel's breakfast area. Into the hallway in the center of the photo is the enormous teakwood carving.

Mission one after our deluxe brekkie, was to use our new transportation skills to get out to The Mall. Now, there are tons of malls in Bangkok, and unlike the sad echoing caverns of American malls, they are busy, busy places. For one thing, they are air-conditioned, and the hotter it is outside, the more people go to the mall. For another, we hear that their food courts are very good, which we haven’t had the heart to try because losing street food in Bangkok would be murder to life there and to all the tiny mom-and-pop kiosks that make one or two things and make them superbly, the people who can’t afford to rent a kitchen at a mall.

The mall we go to is Central World. It’s on the BTS line right before Rama I turns into Sukhumvit. That is meaningless to most of you. The BTS is the elevated train that has been expanding routes all over the city, which is awesome and we’ve used it plenty in the past, but it doesn’t go anywhere near us or Chinatown so we’ll use our newly acquired bus savvy and see what happens.

Well, what happens is, that once again we can board a bus very near our hotel door and it will take us to Central World. It was a Saturday morning, fairly early, the traffic wasn’t insane, the bus was another AC bus, all was well.

After we deboarded the bus we were immediately met on the sidewalk by a young guy standing near the gate of one of the big hotel chains. He pounced on us, asking where we were going, where we were from, etc. He was security, he said. Off to the mall, we chirpily replied.

Oh, the mall is closed, today is Buddhist holiday, the mall won’t open for two more hours.

The streets were full of people, there was no indication a Buddhist holiday was in progress, and in fact I’d never heard of any business closing unless it was New Year’s, but okay, we’ll go with that.

The mall is closed? Even the front door? I told him I need to use the hong nam, which was very much true. He excitedly shepherded us to a toilet area inside the hotel grounds, great. On the way there he peppered us with thoughts on how we could spend those two hours before the mall opens. Floating market? Wat Arun? Royal Palace? We told him we weren’t going to do any of those things today, but thanks a lot.

Now, of course after I used the hong nam and he had disappeared we headed to the mall and of course it was open. We had a good laugh about that because we really hadn’t picked up on the scam. 23 years ago there were tuk-tuk guys outside the Royal Palace who swore up and down that it was closed today but they could take us to such-and-such instead. Such a tired little scam! Do something else with your fluent English, dude.

Inside the mall I spent considerable time renewing my cell phone plan. Hint: it’s cheaper to buy a whole new package with a new number than to top it up for another month. Bruce went looking for pens. Then I changed money at the moneychanger. Then back onto another bus.

This bus went to an area of Chinatown that has a small pocket of India, and within that pocket is a tiny restaurant in an alley that makes mohinga, the national dish of Myanmar. And laphet thoke, tea leaf salad, also a national dish of Myanmar. Two iconic dishes from Myanmar.

That’s what we ordered but everybody else there was eating this intriguing tohu pyaw which uses tofu made from chickpeas. Next time.

Our favorite Burmese restaurant in Bangkok.

Burmese food. Tea leaf salad on the left and mohinga on the right. And some sort of pickle she gave us.

The owner and chef and possibly her daughter.

The people sitting next to Bruce gave him a piece of tofu to sop up the pickle juices.

After a little stop for Indian chai, we entered the maw of the main tiny lane of Chinatown shopping hell. It’s an experience that is like no other. This is my third time and I lasted longer than I usually do but it’s pretty incredible. Narrow storefronts crowd side by side in an alleyway where absolute throngs of people and the occasional motorbike commune and shop. We were looking for little things for the granddaughters and their dollhouses. They have the 1:12 scale wooden dollhouse that I built for their mama when she was their age so they really are into miniatures.

Their other dollhouse is Barbie scale so things can be a bit bigger. Anyway, we found some fun little things which were mostly for charm bracelets but I can remove the wires. And then I had to get the hell out of there before I start biting people.

A store solely carrying little doodads that fit into the holes on the top of Crocs.

On the walk back to the hotel we took a wrong turn in the spiderweb of Chinatown and by complete luck we stumbled onto a real miniature shop, and I Iost all perspective and bought so many wonderful tiny things. Pretty sure that there will be another visit there in March because there are things I didn’t buy that I already regret.

My selections on a little tray. There was more, too.

A little background on the whole miniature thing. My dad built a wooden miniature house and furnished it with tiny hand-carved furniture he made himself. He would make two sets of everything and send them to me in Oregon and I would paint them and send him back one set. I still have a box of this incredibly fragile furniture but a lot of it is made from balsa wood and such so my daughter and I agreed to furnish the girls’ house with commercially made items and save the great-grandpa things for another day.

When he died in 2012 and our vast clan gathered for his funeral, my niece set up his dollhouse for us to admire. He had wallpapered and put in working lights and made little figures for each room and it was an absolute marvel.

I made the little rug for him, and it took so long I said 'never again' but now I want to make another.

Honestly, this photo reminds me of coming home when I was a kid.

My dad carved these. The mother is at her sewing machine, she made the boy's sleeve far too long, which amuses the little sister.

After our successful shopping trip we packed up our duffels and then went over to our favorite streetfood street and had some delicious yellow curry. The streets were alive with people, the lovely cool breeze had everybody out. We gaze around and try to imagine if Portland streets were this vibrant and busy. We live near a very lovely food street and on a summer evening there ARE throngs of tourists and locals on the sidewalks going from restaurant to gelato place to wine bar. But they don’t have to step around vats of boiling oil or stacks of plastic chairs so the similarity ends there.

We left a lot of stuff at our hotel in Bangkok!

We took our 7-Eleven ice cream bars to the bench in front of our hotel where the smokers usually sit and contemplated the Bangkok night. We’ll be back in a few weeks. It’ll be hotter then, we’ll be in packing stress mode, but we are going to love being back here again.

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