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VOL. 8.2

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Market Force

By Ellen Teper Lochaya

Forget the supermarket, it’s time for the real thing. An Asian market is a bustling explosion of sights, sounds, smells and tastes that’s like nothing else on earth. Exploring the stalls is a journey of discovery, adventure-shopping at its best.

When it comes to shopping, there’s nothing as much fun as an Asian market. Wandering through one is a fascinating experience, especially for those of us brought up on packaged goods with fresh vegetables and cuts of meat, cleaned, labelled, weighed and wrapped in clear plastic (and carrying “sell-by” dates) on our supermarket shelves. What’s more, the range of fruits, vegetables, spices and “delicacies” displayed is astounding and for the newcomer, fascinating. It can take your breath away.

Quite literally. The smell at the entrance to Phuket Town’s fresh produce market nearly knocked me off my feet. “Whoa!” I grimaced as we entered. “Come on”, said my friend Wanida Hongyok. “Hang in. You’ll be used to it in a second.” I braved it and luckily, she turned out to be right.

We had arrived at the market at the unfashionable hour of 9 am. By now, the crowds of “wholesale” buyers from the hotels and restaurants, swarming through the market between 2 am and 5 am, were gone. The early housewives with their lists of ingredients for tonight’s supper and the breakfast eaters hunkered over bowls of noodles or soupy rice, had finished and gone on their way. What I had initially smelled - the washing-down of meat and fish tables hit by the beginning of sun on the gutters outside - dissipated as soon as we got inside the surprisingly cool, high-ceiling building.

And then as the nose adjusted, the smells that permeated the market came through loud and clear and the way were wonderful - a potpourri of blooming flowers, sugar-and coconut-scented Khanom (Thai desserts and snacks), fresh vegetables and sharp spices, rich curry pastes redolent with strong-smelling shrimp paste and a smattering of cooked foods.

Stalls in Phuket Town’s market are ranged throughout two buildings and, by tradition more than by plan, have been segmented into unlabelled “departments” to make shopping easier, at least in the sense that with just a few trips to the market, you might begin to learn where everything is and could head straight for what you needed. Otherwise, since there does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to product placement - though there probably is to the Thai shopper - your meat and fish may be way over there, your condiments to cook them with on the other side of the market, with flowers somewhere between.

I particularly liked the multi-purpose nature of some stalls. According to Wanida, when shopping for the more perishable foods like meat and fish is finished, between noon and 2pm, the tables are scrubbed clean and become shelves and racks for clothing. This is then displayed throughout the afternoon (after perhaps a short nap for the vendors who have, you realize, been working since 2 am). Somehow, the idea of buying a blouse from a table just divested of fish didn’t appeal to me, especially with lots of small permanent retail clothing shops lining the back of the market, away from the food counters.

One of the things that surprised me was the vast amount of mahk being sold. Mahk is the nut of the betel palm, and used to be an intrinsic part of Thai social culture. It was placed in leaf swabbed with a pineish-lime mixture and chewed. They say it has a mildly narcotic effect, and you will often see old photographs from Thailand’s earlier days showing women (men as well) with black teeth. That’s from chewing betel nut, and was onceseen as a mark of beauty. Says, Wanida: “It used to be the custom when people came to your home for dinner that you automatically brought out your finest betel nut box (anything from wood to precious metal with compartments to hold the various ingredients), and this is how your meal would start - with a little chew of mahk. I suppose, since it’s relaxing, it was our version of your cocktail before dinner.” Chewing betel nut was banned many years ago, but there were several tables at the market, displaying both the dark green new nuts and the orangey older nuts with the proper leaves and other fixings. “The old people still like it,” Wanida said, “so no one makes a fuss over the sales of it. I doubt you’d find anyone under 50 chewing it - black teeth are certainly not fashionable today.” As we stopped to watch a vendor deftly preparing ready-to-chew mahk for a customer, Wanida explained that it is still often used as an offering to gods, in addition to flowers, oranges and other foods.

She stopped to buy some flowers, prepared especially to wai phra (to make flower offering for the Buddha, house hold gods, spirit houses, etc) and I watched the incredible speed with which the vendor peeled off some bottom petals from a purpley-pink lotus and bent several more into interlocking triangles, exposing the beautiful round heart of the flower.

A pretty flower was quickly a lovely piece of art.

We had most fun at the khanom section, where Thai and indigenous Chinese treats vied with some from China and Penang. Most Thai deserts involve the use of sticky rice, sugar (palm or otherwise) and coconut, fried, boild, steamed, baked, custardized, grilled in leaves or bamboo husks, mixed with pandanus leaf (screw pine) for green colour and a smoky flavour, coloured with vegetable dyes and added in small pieces to coconut milk and ice - it’s positively amazing how many desserts and flavours can come from those basic ingredients.


The Chinese desserts were similar, often leaving out the coconut milk and instead, adding red food colouring to denote happiness and prosperity. The Chinese also incorporate other types of flour. The one I liked best was a special treat made for “hungry ghosts”. Once a year during the Hungry Ghost Festival, a special snack is made of vermicelli-like noodles, made as thin as possible for the ghost who was a braggart or spoke ill of other people during his lifetime, and who is punished in the after-life by having his mouth shrunk no larger than a straw. Obviously, this treat is made to fit the specifications of the ghost’s mouth, although when sold “out of season”, so to speak, it’s made a bit bigger for us mortals.

Outside the market, the main street is lined with shops of all descriptions and, if you’re in the market for the batik sarongs that Phuket ladies wear, here’s the place to find them, as well as all sorts of fabrics and sewing aids. There are also basket shops, liquour stores, hardware shops in close proximity – and the Thai International office, directly across from the market in a nicely restored old building. Turn right to Suriyadej Circle and you’ll find yourself on Rasada and Yaowaraj roads, both prime shopping areas.

So take a market walk – you’ll find it’s a shopping trip, an adventure, and a lesson in Thai culture all in one.