Back to the past

Old wooden house in the market, with cat

Author's note: I bumped into this story in the archives.  For some reason, I put it in drafts mode, where it sat unread for months. I posted it again here as it reminds me of the life we left behind in sleepy Talad Phlu, before our move into central Bangkok. 

When Maiyuu is not making food at our place, he visits a shophouse in the market to cook it there.

Normally Maiyuu likes to cook at home. We do not have a kitchen as such, but Maiyuu makes do.

He sets himself up on the floor of our condo, where he keeps a small gas cooker. If he has run out of ingredients, he will venture into the market.

He buys his meat and vegetables at the fresh market, and returns to the condo to make lunch.

Some days, however, he drops in to an eatery next to our place, and asks if he can borrow the wok.

He chooses the ingredients he needs from the owner's food cart, fires up the wok, and off he goes.

Maiyuu has brought home many tasty dishes from this eatery, which he devised and cooked on the spot.

The owner is a single woman in her 30s, who lives on the upper level of a two-storey shophouse with her sister, and their mother.

We call her Chueay (the Thai word for lethargic), because she's a slow worker.

Cooking an order can take her 20 minutes, but there’s plenty to watch while we wait.

Nearby, a family raises cats. An old man opposite keeps scrawny chooks in a cage.

The cats gather around the cage, eyeing their prey.

Chueay’s wok sits outside her shophouse, next to her foodcart.

'Where did you learn to cook?' Chueay asked Maiyuu one day.

'My mother taught me,' said Maiyuu. ‘In my mind, I can still see the dishes we cooked together.’

'Do you still cook with her?'

'No, she's dead,' he said, matter-of-factly.

My boyfriend, raised in the provinces, is a stoic type.

Maiyuu lost his Mum when he was just 15. His Dad has died a few months before. After his parents died, Maiyuu moved in with his grandmother, who lived in the same family housing compound.

He left home a few years later. Accompanied by two or three school friends, he travelled around central Thailand, taking up casual work.

Maiyuu washed dishes at an eatery here, made burgers at a fast food joint there.

He enjoyed himself most selling watches at a department store in the central province of Chachoengsao.

‘I made good money there. The owner could see I sold watches well, and entrusted me with more and more responsibility, until eventually I ran his watch counter for him,’ Maiyuu told me.

Two or three staff worked under him.

A few years later, in his early 20s, Maiyuu fetched up in Bangkok.

Most of his friends had gone their own ways. In the capital, he worked a stint at McDonalds. Later, he served at a lunchtime cafe owned by a friend, a young man called Giant, who as befits his nickname was extremely tall.

When I met him he was sleeping at his friend's place every night as he hadn't long been in the city and had yet to find a place of his own.

At Giant's suggestion, Maiyuu moved in to my single room at an inner-city hostel to help me settle in.

A few months later, by this time partners, we moved to our present place in Talad Phlu, a market village on the Thon Buri side of Bangkok.

The market was the home of a large Chinese community back when Thon Buri was the capital of Bangkok.

When the capital moved to Phra Nakhon on the other side of the river, the Chinese shifted to Sampeng market, where many still remain, and a Muslim community took their place, bringing betel trees with them.

Talad Phlu, on the banks of the Bangkok Yai canal, is known as a former trading post and growing area for betel (phlu, in Thai) trees.

A railway, part of the Mae Klong line and close to Wong Wian Yai station, has run through Talad Phlu for more than 100 years.

Talad Phlu railway station, past and present 

Back in its days as a bustling fresh market, traders arrived by train or on the local canal by boat.

The canal running through the market, back in its heyday and today

Today goods are still shifted on that railway line, and a few traders in rickety open boats sell goods to tourists passing by on the canal, which these days gets few traders visiting from out of town.

Back to our humble story...Maiyuu and I moved to Talad Phlu so my partner could reunite with his friends, who had rented rooms in an ageing condo there.

The condo was really more like an apartment where the rooms, from the inside, have no windows to the outside world. Their doors open to a view of the dusty railway line next to the building. Cheuay's shop was just behind the condo on the other side of the line...just a hop across the tracks and we were there.

A handful of young men and women he knew from school days had rented rooms there and invited Maiyuu to join them.

Thais from the provinces may be hardy, resilient, types, but they like to stick together. Some days, these old school friends gather at Chueay’s place for a meal. None can cook as well as Maiyuu, so he likes to borrow Chueay’s wok to cook for them.

On this day, however, Maiyuu was at Chueay’s place, cooking for us alone.

As Maiyuu finished cooking each dish, Chueay put it in a plastic bag for him so he could take the food home. He paid her for the ingredients alone.

Whether cooking while seated uncomfortably on the floor of our condo, or whipping up a quick dish in the market below, my boyfriend is the resourceful type.

He gets on with the job at hand, without complaint.

Chueay's place, closed for the day (pics taken Nov, 2019)

Next door is a smart hostel

Update, July 2020:  Chueay's humble shophouse is still there, though the place next to it has been converted into a smart inner-city hostel as part of Talad Phlu's transformation from sleepy market town, as it was 10 years ago when we lived there, to smart urban outpost of Bangkok.

Talad Phlu adapts even as its historic importance as a trading hub has diminished. A rash of condos has gone up since a BTS skytrain opened at the doorstep of the market in 2014.

As you would expect, the skytrain improved access to the area and ushered in a wave of modernisation including smart inner-city style shops and eateries, the likes of which did not exist in my day.

I recall an urban-style cafe opened on the main road but lasted a matter of months, as locals, unaccustomed to central Bangkok ways, stayed away. The exception was the local teen population, who knew about latte and WiFi, but games shops also competed for their trade.

During World War II, the building which now houses Cheuay's place and the hostel next door was an imposing army doctor's clinic. The building, once the tallest in the market, burned down in a fire but was rebuilt.

I took the pictures above during a visit in November last year. Unfortunately Chueay's place was closed for the day, or I would have dropped in for a chat.

Read more about the hostel next to her shop here, and Talad Phlu's history here (Thai only, but with pics). For pics of the town including its lively trading scene, see this FB site. YouTube has a travel-style clip which gives you a good feel of the township here.

Talad Phlu looks more modern now than it did 10 years ago. When I walk through it today, I barely remember parts of the market, it has changed so much. For more of how the town has developed since the skytrain started its push west of the river, see here.