The Morning Market

I thought it might be interesting to you guys if I shared a little about the morning market here.

As its name implies, the morning market is an open-air market that's only there in the mornings. Vendors usually arrive before 8 and have started packing up around 10. That's not a big window! But lucky for me, it corresponds to the time right after I drop M off at school, so my usual Monday morning routine goes school drop-off, 10 minute bus ride, market shopping and then a 20 minute bus ride home. I can usually finish all that and be back home before H needs to leave for school at 9:45, meaning E stays at home with him while I shop. Which is great, because I ALWAYS buy more than I can comfortably carry and I'm suffering the entire way home.

Old pic. And also this is not actually a morning market, but it's exactly like one, except you would have guys like this all down both sides of the street. In fact, these guys probably left the morning market at 10 and came and set up on this street.

The morning market is a great experience! Old ladies yelling at vendors about prices that are too high, restaurant owners on motorcycles buying whole sheep, kids lugging shopping caddies way too big for them, vendors hollering out their prices; there's never a dull moment! Just about the only thing that would make it more exciting is if they were slaughtering animals right there. But they're not, so don't get too freaked out.

Chickens. Head and feet included. But no organs! So I'm pretty happy.

The morning market is the place to get the freshest AND cheapest food. Especially for fruit, you'll pay only about 2/3 of the price as anywhere else and it'll be much better. You can get almost anything there: fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, spices, tea, bread, milk and yogurt, even clothes and house plants. Last week, I found a sticky rice treat that the lady sprinkled sugar on and then poured syrup on before handing it to me in a bag. Talk about high blood sugar! But it was delicious.

Dried fruit and nuts.

Between one trip to the morning market a week and one delivered box of fresh organic vegetables grown by a foreigner here, we get all the groceries we need. Of course, if I forget something the fruit stand downstairs is only about 2 minutes from our front door. So, apart from the imported stuff that has to be bought online (think cheese and butter), it's pretty easy to get food!