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Exploring the streets, and Buddhism, in Bangkok

David Kennedy Jun 25, 2024 Trips

On my first full day in Bangkok, we met a local guide at 5am to tour a flower market before sunrise. While the market is open 24 hours a day, it’s most active in the early hours of the morning. We knew little about the market going into the day, except that it was near our hotel and easy to reach at 4:30am.

Despite the early hour, the market was very much awake. Two big things I hadn’t realized beforehand: One, this is a wholesale market only, meaning you buy in bulk and the average person couldn’t just wander in to buy a bouquet for themselves. Two, these flowers are largely for the temples. Once I learned it was a wholesale market, I figured that meant other shops, hotels, and restaurants came here. No, the 450+ Buddhist temples in Bangkok alone provide enough demand as flowers often adorn the temples and are given as offerings. The fact that this entire infrastructure was there to serve that number of temples was mind-boggling.

Here a few photos from that morning walk.

A fresh delivery of flowers outside the market is unloaded. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many flowers loaded into one truck before.

A worker delivers flowers to individual stalls. How they track inventory – who receives what and what payment – was not obvious to a casual onlooker like myself.

Flowers and more flowers lined up and ready for sale.

Flowers adorning one of the temples we visited later in the day.

After the flower market, we continued to explore nearby neighborhoods.

In parts of Bangkok, especially it seems at the start and end of the day, you’ll see monks taking donations, also known as receiving alms. These donations are often food, and givers can make merit, or tam boon, as they say in Thai, essentially building karma for this life or the next.

You present your food and place it in their alm bowl, fold your hands together and bow your head, and the monks will offer some prayers. If you’re wondering where you get the food, there are street vendors everywhere with much of the food packaged for giving alms.

In these photos you’ll notice many of the monks are younger. We were told that this was likely a summer camp of sorts of young monks in training. Younger monks have only a fraction of the rules to follow – like a dozen or two – compared to adults monks who have 220 rules they live by.