brj8826

My wife and I are currently in Bangkok and searching for a modern looking set of Celadon. We just got back from the Celadon house off of Sukumvhit, and as mentioned they had a small selection. We did actually like two of the three colors they had but are not sure if it would be worth a trip up to Chaing Mai just to buy. It would cost us about $100 US to get up there for the day so that would most likely kill any savings.

Does either the weekend market or the night bazaar have any Celadon?

We are looking for a VERY basic set, no ornate designs just a straight forward color with maybe a bit of gradience.

My wife likes the standard Celadon color and I like something a little darker, but that problem is for another day.

Thanks!

KimJapan

Have you had a look around the everthing Thai floor in Siam Paragon? They might have what you are looking for. In January, even though they were just opening, there was lots of really good stuff there I thought.

hobbes

Siam Discovery Center home floor has a couple of shops which keeps very smart celadon - the last time I went they had a very contemporary pattern. The night bazaar did not have a shop dedicated to celadon the day I went.

rhkkmk

the shops in CM have a huge inventory, but i am not sure it is worth the trip just to buy dishes....did you ask the shop in bkk for suggestions and have you asked your hotel for a suggestion....another alternative might be to give the nancy chandler office on sathorn a call (or maybe it is silom) and ask if they have a suggestion....

brj8826

All great suggestions. We will give them all a try tomorrow, thanks!

Guenmai

They have it in the bazaar called,"Exotic Thai" on the top level of the Siam Paragon shopping mall. Happy Travels!

rhkkmk

treasurers and pleasurers book also suggests a couple of places:

thai taworn brothers co, ltd; 89/34-35 rajathavee cross, phyathai road---across from the asia hotel..there is a skytrain stop at asia hotel, btw...

lotus ceramics; sukhumvit rd, soi 3/1--off the larger soi 3...near nana train stop actually

maybe these will help

Guenmai

That's Treasures and Pleasures. Happy Travels!

rhkkmk

thanks guen....you know how i rush...

hi50phd

Went to the Celadon factory in CM. There would have been charges for both packing and shipping. The former, of course, needs to be bullet proof to survive the trip a long trip. In our case to the US. It would have also doubled the weight of the dishes. Then, shipping by weight, rather than by volume is also very expenseive.

Don't recall the exact factory estimate, but it would have about doubled the off-the-shelf cost of the dishes, alone.

Next trip, we plan to find a service that ships by volume, probably a cubic meter. Weight is not a factor in this case and you can get a lot into a box this size.

brj8826

Hey guys, we were able to easily find the Exotic Thai, but the others proved to be an issue. They front desk at the asia hotel had no idea when I showed them the name and address and none of the shops around did either.

Any other landmarks to look for?

MaryW

For attention of hi50phd - I'm a potter in Australia and frequently have to pack and ship to customers. It does take a huge amount of packing to be reasonably sure that the work will survive.

What I find though is that in Australia the postage is by volume for domestic and weight for overseas. The volume is always higher in this case as they convert it to a "relative" weight. I wish we could use the actual weight in domestic parcels as it would be much cheaper.

It may of course be different in each country but the only way we here can get the volume rates (with no conversion to a relative weight) are by the cubic metre (1 cu/mt being the minimun) for shipping with a freight forwarder. Thats fine but a cubic metre of pottery is an enormous amount - far more than most individuals would want. So just watch out if you do decide to ship next time as it may not be any advantage unless you can consolidate all your purchases into one package. That of course brings up problems with things like customs (see Guenmai's post about her monks)

brj8826

Finally found Taworn Bros. Very nice lady runs the place, but no one new where it was. My hotel was able to dig up a phone number but gave me completely wrong directions. We finally made it through an extended direction session from a payphone, but alas no Celadon.

We did locate a place that sold it at the Night Bazaar/Market. We are probably just going to end up buying half from there and half from the Celadon house. We'll give Chatuchak a chance this weekend before making any final purchases but aren't holding out too much hope.

hobbes

I've remembered that there was a GREAT shop in Jatujak Plaza (which is the fixed shop type place in the weekend market) which had celadon. I bought quite a bit there.

brj8826

Thanks hobbes, we're going to check it out this AM. I assume the Plaza shops are open all week?

hi50phd

MaryW.

Thanks for the tip.

We'd heard that this might be the case, but had no confirmation. We had been planning to make several purchases only one of which would be from the Celadon factory.

We found some glass and iron pieces at the Elegant Glass factory that we coveted on our first trip. One piece was almost a meter around.

Then, we passed up many things we saw at the Sunday Walking Market. Some woven cotton articles, silk paintings, lanterns, masks, silver, other pottery and on and on.

I don't think it would be difficult for my wife to fill a cubic meter container.

brj8826

Boy this sucks, we finally decided on a set of Baan Celadon at Exotic Thai and the protests shutdown the Siam Paragon for at least the next two days. They say it will only be for Wed and Thurs, but with elections coming up on Sunday I am not holding my breath that they will reopen before we leave on Sunday.

Is there anywhere else in BKK that sells Baan Celadon? The Celadon house only sells Thai Celadon.

I am surprised at how hard that stuff is to find in the city.

Guenmai

The place that you started to buy from...was it the place that's to your right after you enter Exotic Thai from the main, mall entrance? If it is, I liked their celadon,too. It was a more contemporary style than at other places where I've seen it. I nearly bought some from there. You might want to try Amarin Plaza...connected to the skytrain bridge at the Chitlom station. There might be some stores in there since the mall is full of "Thai" boutiques on every floor. I shop there quite a bit and it's a rather deserted,but peaceful place to shop. There's also another branch of Naryaphand inside of that mall. Good luck. Happy Travels!

brj8826

NP was WAY overpriced for the same stuff as everywhere else. They were at least 30% higher and would not budge at all on their prices. Will try your other suggestion today.

Yes, the location you spoke of in ET was where we found what we liked.

rhkkmk

just thought of another place with slightly more contemporary pieces ...don't know the name, but its on 3rd floor of gaysorn plaza on the side of the building that faces the former world trade center...about mid way down the line of shops....very very nice stuff...