In a field off the city-centre in Bangkok, sits a decommissioned airplane—the surreal centre piece of Chang Chui, one among the city’s famed night markets. Shops, bars and stalls surround it like puppies at the teats of a creature who might be either from a mythic past or a dystopian future.

South East Asia’s night markets are an inclusive kind of leisure. The night air more conducive to grazing, browsing, timepass. Tourism reformats everyday life into conveyor belt consumption. So, in more touristy destinations, such markets sometimes feel as uninspiring as malls with repetitive and predictable wares. It’s not unlike how every Indian holiday spot now has a standardised “hippy” market with elephant print cotton pyjamas, straw hats, Kashmiri handicrafts, tie-and-dye sundresses. Chang Chui provides a pleasurable contrast with its eclectic, affordable stalls and the airy plenitude of space to stroll without being hustled. There’s a conscious but understated “cool” aesthetic to the informal architecture of corrugated iron and old wood. Indeed a playful, beautiful place which keeps its own hipness in check.