Just around the corner from our house lies a large indoor market. The vendors there sell all kinds of groceries, fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood and spices; whatever you are cooking, you can probably get the ingredients there. The market is so big, in fact, that it spills out of the building onto the surrounding streets, the vendors lining up their stalls – or sometimes just a tarp on the ground – along the curb. In the mornings, especially on weekends, the entire block around the market building is complete chaos; hundreds of people milling about, their paths intertwining as they move from stall to stall; streams of scooters creeping slowly through the crowd, veering left then right to find a way between the shoppers; cars like great lumbering beasts that inch forward in search of a parking space; the air filled with the murmur of voices and the buzzing of engines, the shouts of vendors cutting through the din. I guess for many people around the world, this is just normal and the chaos is something you have to deal with in order to get fresh food at decent prices. However, for someone who grew up in a country where markets are far more rare, and never as chaotic, this is quite fascinating. Here are my attempts to capture the beautiful chaos of the market.
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