The smell reached me before the sight—salt air mingling with grilled fish, incense, and wet concrete. I'd stumbled into Khlong Toei Market in Bangkok at dawn, following nothing but curiosity and the sound of voices rising with the sun.
An elderly woman squatted beside plastic tubs of live catfish, their whiskers brushing the water's surface. She caught me staring and smiled, gesturing to a small wooden stool. Sit, her eyes said. I did.
She didn't speak English. I didn't speak Thai. But she poured me tea from a dented thermos, the kind that's been refilled a thousand mornings, and we watched the market wake together. Motorbikes threaded between vegetable stalls. A man hosed down the concrete, water pooling around our feet. Someone laughed—a deep, rolling sound that echoed off the corrugated metal roofs.