Squander enough days at Chatuchak Weekend Market and it becomes inevitable. You swallow your dignity and enough untainted air before stepping into the foul restroom to do your business as quickly as possible.
One of the busiest weekend haunts of locals and visitors, Chatuchak’s much-hated toilets might become a bad memory as it hopes to replace them – and add more – by finding commercial sponsors.
Landowner State Railway of Thailand will seek companies willing to pay for the construction of new toilets in return for using them to market their products and services, Paisal Suprungrote, the SRT’s chief of the market, said yesterday.
Right now there are only eight restrooms to serve the estimated 200,000 people who visit the market each Saturday and Sunday.
SRT has earmarked THB70 million for improving facilities such as toilets, roads and drainage, Paisal said.
Meanwhile, more than 3-in-4 of the market’s approximately 8,500 vendors have not renewed their leases, which will expire Tuesday. More than 2,000 have reportedly done so for five-year terms and monthly rents of THB3,154, Bangkok Post reported.
