After a few days of rest, John has now returned to the living and today we ventured out to visit the Thailand Creative and Design Centre.

The centre – built inside the old Thai Central Mail Postal building in 2017, houses a mix of design work spaces, a massive design library, exhibitions, various galleries, as well as a cafe and rooftop garden.

Overall it’s an excellent place to spend a few hours if interested in design (it covers all types of design disciplines). During our visit it was pretty much empty (we saw probably about 5 other non staff in the building) which is a pity because it’s an impressive complex.

During our time browsing in the library I stumbled across a travel book “secret marvels of the world”. The book highlights places which perhaps don’t make it into the majority of holiday itineraries… an example of a recommended destination in this book;

The Lima Witches Market

The women arrive with the dawn, many on overnight buses from the mountains. Their traditional layered petticoats and bowler hats identify them as curanderos (mystical healers).

One curandero, a plug of cocoa leaves tucked in her cheek, slowly passes a guinea pig over the prone body of a woman on a table then brings it to her ear, as if listening to what it has to say.

The woman has complained of stomach pains and the curandero assures her the quinea pig has identified her problem. It is cancer. Not to worry, though, as the curandero now passes an egg over the afflicted spot while chanting an incantation.

The woman is then told to rise and go her way. She leaves, believing she is cured and thankful no doubt to the Guinea Pig for its diagnoses.

Obviously completely unrelated to Thailand – but how could I not recount the tale of the healer guinea pigs of Peru?

Predictably we’ve had some great Thai food here! The best so far at a dodgy little restaurant near where we are staying. We’ll likely return there before we leave – both as the food was delicious and because we have a Mango Sticky rice dessert promised for free on our next visit as we moved tables mid meal on our last visit to help the owners fit a large group in for dinner.

I suspect many tourists underestimate the heat involved in Authentic Thai food – because even where we’ve asked for medium spice – the food arrives fairly mild… the result I suspect of “it’s too spicy” feedback from many prior tourists over the years…

Hopefully before we leave we manage to find some Thai food with that magical balance of heat that challenges the taste buds without destroying them!

We’re now down to two nights remaining in Bangkok and we are both now looking forward to our arrival in the US – AND specifically getting into an AirBnB – hotel life, nice as it is for a few nights – has its limits.