Mobile vendors and door-to-door sales

[Song_Si]

when we lived in Sa Kaeo province (48km to supermarket if that is a measure of civilisation), we'd see a succession of pickup trucks selling a variety of items.

every day around 6.15am and accompanied by a blaring loudspeaker system, the food vehicle. A pickup with two freezers on the back, loaded high with racks selling pork, chicken, squid, prawns, fish from the refrigerators, and fruits, vegetables, chilis (always chilis), eggs etc. They started there day at markets about 30km away which opened at 3am and spent the day driving/stopping at regular places/times.

The food one was the only daily sales truck, but others we'd see included

- clothing; adults/childrens on a credit scheme, hire purchase where they sold to people one week and took small payments in the following months. Was told they were very expensive

- mattresses; pickups loaded ridiculously high with mattresses, some with bed frames too. At 187cm tall was definitely the odd one out, tried one for size once and it was less than 180cm (6ft) long. No thanks

- furniture; in Wang Nam Yen (on highway 317) there's a large furniture making co-operative village, good stuff too, and occasionally they load up big trucks and cruise the rural roads. Couple of pics here from the WNY showrooms



- plasticware for dogs; innovative scheme where plastic items, buckets, bowls etc are exchanged for stray/unwanted dogs, headed for across the border and human consumption.


more to follow . . .

[Song_Si]

- a personal favourite are the broom salespeople; not because I buy brooms, but I marvel at their vehicles - somewhere inside is concealed a motorbike and driver. Also get smaller versions built around a bicycle or handcart


- farm tools, knives, machetes and a range of sharp-pointy things

- cooking oil, sauces

- aluminium ladders. But never when you need them, had a 7m one made for me from bamboo instead.

- gasoline/petrol, sold by the whisky bottle

- food. We now live in a town of about 5000 with good daily markets, but still enough business it seems to support a number of mobile food salespeople, the noodle truck, numerous motorbike/sidecars selling fruit, drinks, 15l drinking water, pre-made lunches, milk, icecream . . . and my current favourite the mobile roti man, pushes his handcart along our street twice a day and often the 8pm temptation is too much.



- chairs and furniture; trucks offload teams of people with large carts overloaded with cane furniture who cover the town's streets in a day then move on

- and at the beach, a truck and a motorbike somewhere under those inflatables


I'm sure there's more. Add yours . . .

Yesterday a new one, jars of dried chilis, 3 for 50 baht, who could resist?

[hydroman]

I love these mobile vendors how they can ride their bikes or drive amazes me. I would always know when a bad one came around as my wife would send me to the gate as you get the odd one trying to sell double glazing or something like that it was fun just let them talk don’t say a thing after about 10 minutes Say to them I can’t speak Thai what did you say, the expression on their face always made me smile.