A Pole Hawker at Rest

15 Mar

One of my favourite subjects to write about on the Bangkok Blog has to do with street hawkers.  They are an integral part of the life of Bangkok.  And notwithstanding the fact that Bangkok is modernizing like crazy, street hawkers can still be found on almost every street in the city.  There is one particular type of street hawker that does seem to be disappearing though.  That’s the pole hawker.  These are the folks who carry a bamboo pole on their shoulders withtwo baskets suspended on either end.  It’s heavy work in a hot city.  I wrote about this category of street vendor back in December 2014.  That post had some references to even earlier entries.  I even made a grainy, poorly produced video, shown below,  of some pole hawkers that I photographed many years ago.  



I don’t see many of these folks anymore.  But yesterday, an older lady pole vendor was taking a break just across the street from our acute care hospital.  It was a hot day and I supposed that she needed a rest.  Our facilities occupy both sides of the street and the staff in our coffee shop that she was leaning against came out at one point to invite her in to cool off.  But she seemed content to sit outside.  I have a feeling that she didn’t want to lose any sales opportunities.

There are not as many of these special breed of street vendors anymore, but the few that remain continue to ply their trade along the streets of Bangkok.

3 thoughts on “A Pole Hawker at Rest

  1. Yes, Thai Norman Rockwell paintings!

    I especially enjoyed your interesting choice of background music

    The chaos of Italian chamber meets the chaos of Thai street life!

    Beautiful

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