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At least those are colors found in nature.

At least those are colors found in nature.

I’m not a big fan of bottled water, generally preferring to quench my thirst with something that has a taste. And if your bottle of water does, that’s not a good thing. While I get the importance of hydrating, walking around a urban setting carrying a bottle of water with you like you are on safari or trekking through the desert seems just a bit affected to me. It’s not like we didn’t have water or bottles before the two began being marketed together. But how often did you see someone toting water with them everywhere they went thirty years ago?

Thanks to the heat, humidity, and the need to wash the city’s taste out of my mouth occasionally, when I’m spending the day out and about in Bangkok I do tend to carry a bottle of ice tea with me. I’m not sure why. But every morning my first stop is the closest 7/11 to buy a bottle. I never drink the stuff at home. But can easily go through several bottles a day in Thailand. Maybe it’s just my iconoclastic answer to all the touri carrying bottles of water with them. It’s not like there isn’t a place selling liquid refreshment on every corner of the city.

Juice stands are almost as ubiquitous in Bangkok as are 7/11s. Just a lot more colorful. They always catch my eye, even when in passing. Trying to figure out what juice each color represents is a mild form of entertainment. I doubt if my guesses have ever been 100% accurate, ‘cuz those that bother to label their tanks of juices always seem to use some strange names. I’m not sure what a logan is. I am sure that my first thought on seeing a chrysanthemum is not how good its juice would taste.

juice 2

On my first visit to Bangkok – far too many years ago – it wasn’t until we hit the Weekend Market that I felt the need for something to replenish my body’s fluids. Chatuchak is one of the few places in the world where carrying around a bottle of water makes sense. (Though even at that market there is a vendor selling ice cold bottles at every corner.) Thinking a nice cold Coke would hit the spot, I experienced my first (and last) ambient temperature coke in a plastic bag. It is not exactly a refreshing drink when the temperature is around 100 degrees and the crowds are packed around you like a scrum waiting for the gates of Hell to open. For all the advertising Coke does, you never see them use the coke-in-a-bag motif. No matter how popular that treat is in SE Asia.

juice 3

With the bright, vivid, exotic colors and myriad flavors available, juice stands would be and should be a bigger draw to me, beyond as a photographic subject. I know back home purple liquid is grape, even if its taste has nothing to do with what grapes taste like, so it’d be interesting to try purple in Bangkok to see what flavor the Thais associate with that color. But I am already familiar with what they believe orange juice is supposed to taste like from being served a glass at almost every free hotel breakfast I’ve ever had in the country. It’s closer to the taste of oranges than the color orange is back home, but orange juice in Thailand is more about sugar than it is about citrus. That’s not the kind of surprise you need first thing in the morning. And what kind of surprise is waiting for me if I decided to see what red tastes like at a juice stand is probably not something I really need to experience either.

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