With apologies to Murray Head, I’m not so sure about this place. In order to not cause an international incident I can only describe Bangkok as chaos. But not in the orderly, ‘there is a purpose to this’ kind of chaos as there is when crossing the main Shibuya intersection (Shibuya scramble). It’s as if there are no discernible laws, though I’m sure there must be something on the books. So law ‘in theory’ perhaps.

Unlike Tokyo, there are places you really don’t want to go at night and your hand is never far from your wallet. If Japan seems ‘foreign’ at first, Thailand is multiple steps beyond that, in everything from food to customs.

In some regards, Japan is a seemingly secular country. There are Shinto and Buddhist shrines everywhere, but for the most part there are no fanatics. One never sees monks in the street and people visit shrines mostly on traditional holidays. The Shinto and Buddhist religions co-exist peacefully and many people follow both to some extent.

In Thailand there also seems to be two religions; Buddhism and the king, Bhumibol Adulyadej who also goes by the cooler sounding title of Rama IX. Large and small shrines are everywhere you look. Every house and business has a Buddhist shrine either inside or outside or both. And everywhere you look there are posters, billboards, and shrines all featuring the smiling, benevolent countenance of Rama IX. It’s a bit Orwellian, especially considering that I’ve never seen a picture of the Japanese emperor anywhere in Tokyo.

If you’re up for ‘action,’ bars, noise, traffic and ‘different,’ by all means, Bangkok is your kind of place. For me, while very interesting and beautiful in a gritty kind of way, I will cross it off of my ‘been-there-done-that’ list. I’m glad we went, but for my baht, I’ll be returning to Cambodia before Thailand.

I’ll let the pictures tell the story…