JJ Mall Chatuchak — Local services in Chatuchak Subdistrict

I would like to recommend you a shopping mall named JJ Mall, which is located very close to Chatuchak weekend Market, the biggest market in Thailand. If you are going to visit Bangkok and have done some research, I’m sure that you must know Chatuchak weekend market more or less. Moreover, while searching, you might have seen the other two places which are JJ Green and JJ Mall and wonder how they look like comparing to Chatuchak weekend market. I myself have reviewed JJ Green before; you can click on the link, if you are interested in. In this post, I intend to share you about JJ Mall: how it looks like, what you can expect to buy or eat there, and so on. Hope it helps.

JJ Mall is an air-conditioned shopping place. This mall has 3 floors with more than 1,000 shops.

From the sign, each floor sells products in different categories as you can see below.

The G floor (Ground floor): Handicrafts, OTOP (One Tambon One Product), Pet Shop, Supermarket, Fashion Clothes, Thai Massage, Gold/Silverware, Art&Paintings, Pharmacy, Home Decor, Accessories.

The F floor (1st floor): cosmetics, Gems&Jewelry, Ornaments, Restaurants, Fashion&Giftshop, Bank&Money Exchange, Optical Shop.

The S floor (2nd floor): Food Center, Optical Shop, Antiques, Home Furniture, Health&Beauty, IT Center, Mobile Phone, Pharmacy, Gold/ Silverware.

However, after walking for a while. I found that the shops were mixed together and they were not grouped as I saw in the sign.

You can see a shop selling home decoration products next to a shop selling bicycle. However, you can expect to see various goods. And also various food and beverage. Its food court is quite big. And they also have popular...

After I have discovered JJ Mall, I hardly go to Chatuchak market anymore. JJ Mall is a very old fashioned air con mall that has many subdivided cubicle shops on the top levels selling antique furniture and religious statues. It is not as crowded as other new malls but there are many local startups and handicraft shops to explore. I was there during year end 2017 and happened to walk past a Thai agricultural products exhibition. I was indeed very lucky because they were selling their produce of the year and there were so much fruits and Thai eats that you don't normally see in touristy areas. That also means that this place is also for locals as well as for foreign visitors, which is the main reason why I like this mall. I chanced past this aisle of Thai honey sellers and was curious because they were selling honey of curious colors as well as slabs of honeycombs. I tried the longan and almonds flowers honey and OMG! It was the best honey I've ever tasted! It wasn't too sweet but it has this almond bitter aftertaste which I totally adored. I bought a litre of it and was quite regretful when got home. I should bought a few more bottles it!! These produce are usually not represented by the supermarket big names and the farmers brought them in from Chiang Rai. This year, I am going to JJ Mall again and hopefully the honey sellers...

Overall this place is pretty amazing. There's and indoor, air conditioned part that is around 3 or 4 stories tall with a ton of shops, places to eat, including the usual food court area (if at all possible I recommend eating in the food court areas to save money). You can also get Thai massages here but it's a little pricey. I bought a bunch of small gifts to take back to Hawaii, snacks, placemats, tissue box holders, keychains, t-shirts, etc.

The outdoor part has more of a swap meet/flea market feel to it. Here you can also buy small gifts to take home, but the highlights are the variety of animals for sale. You can buy squirrels, small snakes, lizards, rabbits, birds, dogs, cats, fish of all kinds (arrowanas and koi seem to be most popular), turtles, even monkeys! The downside to this area of the market is the fact that they do not allow photography of any kind. I'm thinking it's because some of these animals may be illegal to keep, or maybe the cages are small and some ppl could consider them inhumane. Either way it dropped my score from 5* to 4*.

Ample parking is available if you choose to drive. Its 20 baht per hour to park in the structure. I'd recommend using the BTS as it stops right at JJ mall and it's much cheaper and less stressful than other options (taxi, tuk...