Shopping in Bangkok and Chaing Mai

We%26#39;ll (the Aunt and teenage Niece) be in Bangkok 4 days and 4 in Chaing Mai. We do love to shop but are not interested in designer clothing or handbags and don%26#39;t like indoor malls (wierd, huh?) Can you suggest markets with local clothing, ethnic jewerly and such?

Many Thanks

Shopping in Bangkok and Chaing Mai

Bangkok:

Check out Suan Luum Night Bazaar if it%26#39;s still open.

Jatuchak Market is great for weekend.

Pratunaam is good for clothes.

Don%26#39;t know about Chaingmai. It%26#39;s been a long time since I%26#39;ve been there last. I think there is a night bazaar similar to Suan Luum one.

Shopping in Bangkok and Chaing Mai

In Chiang Mai, if you are there on a Sunday, check out the Sunday Walking Market. It%26#39;s a huge outdoor market that takes over several blocks of the city streets. They close the streets to motorized traffic. Warning, it gets PACKED with people. We were there from about 5:30 to 7:00 PM and found it almost overwhelmingly crowded (we had our 5 1/2 year olds with us and, at times, picked them up rather than trying to lead them through the crowds). One really neat thing is that there are several wats in the area and you can visit them while you walk the market.

In Bangkok, there is also Bo Pae market, its a wholesale clothing market. You%26#39;d need to get a taxi to go there (not that far from Siam area), and its spread over a number of streets around a canal.

If they want something very authentic, they may need to find the clothes in Chiangmai. But you can find things like sea pants or thai style cotton shirt everywhere, sometime it%26#39;s cheaper in the indoor mall eg: Platinum mall.

Sampaeng (in Chinatown) is also a bargain hunters delight. However, virtually everywhere you go you will find small markets ready to accept your baht. Around victory monument, along Silom Rd and Patpong, along Sukhumvit Rd, and on and on and on. Thais do two things with a lot of spirit, eat and shop.

For all your local and ethnic shopping, Chiangmai is the better location (and cheaper).

Thanks for all the great suggestions. ARe these the sort of places that the locals would shop at also?

in bangkok, platinum, chatuchak and pratunam markets are very heavily patronized by locals. the suan lum night market is almost entirely tourists, with the exception that thais like to hang out at the food/beer court (but don%26#39;t shop there, usually). The prices at suan lum can easily be twice what you will pay at chatuchak, as my thai girlfriend discovered, to her chagrin.

i noticed i left out a couple: chinatown, victory monument area and bo pae have lots of locals. patpong is strictly tourists (thais have way too much sense to pay their ridiculous prices). I%26#39;ve never bought anything there.

In regards to the Bo Pae mentioned by BKK Resident, it is called Bo Be (pronounced bo-bay) on some maps. It is like a garment district and when we were there last month many of the stalls on the streets would only sell wholesale (meaning you had to purchase a minimum number of items -- sometimes 6, sometimes 30 pieces). At some stalls they just waved at us and said ';wholesale only'; so we moved on.

In the middle of that area is the Bo Be Towers complex. This is covers 2 buildings, several floors and hundreds of stalls. We shopped there and loved it. Some of the places would sell you one thing at a time and some had minimums, but the prices were so reasonable that it has become our new favorite place to shop. For example one store had a minimum of 6 items and they didn%26#39;t all have to be the same item. Since we were shopping for twins it was easy to buy the minimum amount (good quality jersey cotton shorts for 50B each).

Another thing we really liked about it is that all the stalls were different. Many times when you shop markets or even shopping centers you find the same things at lots of different stalls. Bo Be had a huge variety of stuff -- from ready-to-wear, to office supplies, to hair products, you name it.

There is also a very good food court on the 6th floor (follow the signs), and near the food court is an ATM which we found helpful. The customers appeared to be about 80% locals and the rest were westerners.