Women are from a different planet than men.  I certainly can’t take credit for this bit of wisdom, as there are whole books about the subject, but in one of those lightbulb moments the sentiment really hit home with me during a recent outing.

The Chiang Mai Sunday market is truly a spectacle to be seen.  The main road through the center of the old city gets closed down at around mid-afternoon and the merchants begin setting up stalls in the street hawking every sort of item you can imagine.  Much of the stuff is oriented towards parting tourists from some of their money for souvenirs, but there are plenty of vendors selling goods to locals, and street food carts, and well, almost anything you can imagine.  The local people say that it stretches for over 7 kilometers and including branches down side streets, alleys, temple grounds and just about any other flat open area it is easy to see how it could be that or more.

As we are trudging through the sea of people, passing by stall after stall of people selling what certainly appears on the surface to be a repeating pattern of the same products (after all, how many booths really need to sell ‘iPood’ t-shirts and Bob Marley headbands) I am starting to wonder why we are still here walking about.  We have already had our delicious sampling of street food, and have now walked by the 4th or 5th place selling flip-flops when the light-bulb moment occurs – Mrs. Columbus actually likes shopping – not for anything in particular, just likes shopping!?!

I’ll fully admit to buying things so I guess technically that is shopping, but I am always looking for something not just shopping randomly, and if given the chance I would much rather do it online from the comfort of the couch, so I completely cannot fathom actually wanting to go somewhere to just look at stuff that I have no specific desire for and no fixed objective.  At one point in the trek Mrs. Columbus even says to me: ‘Boy it just goes on forever doesn’t it?’ and then ventures on forward….

Clearly women are from a different planet.