Bangkok

You won't be feeling like you're anywhere else when you're in Bangkok

“Love it, hate it, or just like it, the Kok is one of a kind where contrasts collide.  Third World and First World, upscale highrises and sewer stenched tenements , street stall foods and elite deluxe hotel cuisine.  European expats on expense accounts brush shoulders (and rub their pelvises in intimate embraces) with Lao, Burmese, and Filipino maids.   Anything and everything goes on in the Kok.  Spend enough time here, and your definition of reality is altered more than regularly doing LSD.”  Doug Knell, Doug’s Republic

Way back in 1985, Murray Head sang about “One Night In Bangkok.”  That was probably the first time I ever thought about the place, though in an abstract way.  I wasn’t considering an eventual relocation there. 

Bangkok became first impression of Thailand way back in ’94.  Flights back then landed at Don Muang Airport, since relegated to mostly domestic flights.  My flight from the United States was routed through India, and I didn’t get to Bangkok until past midnight.  The airport by then was mostly deserted.  I caught a taxi with a Frenchman, Fabrice, and we wound up sharing a room on the infamous Khao San Road for several days and then going traveling together.

Bangkok was very different in the mid-1990′s.  The ultra-modern air conditioned shopping malls hadn’t yet spread their tentacles throughout the capital.  And there wasn’t a Skytrain or Mass Rapid Transit system built yet.  I vaguely recall walking past the Hard Rock at Siam Square and eating at a restaurant there that I later revisited more than a decade later.  Street traffic was just as bad, if not worse, than today. 

[Click the picture to get the rest of the data on this bar, okay?]

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1. Bangkok Neighborhoods – Soi Arab
2. Kiteboarding Zones In Bangkok
3. Kanchanaburi
4. Ayuthaya
5. Pattaya