After not enough sleep A NEW BEGINNING

I had a chance to get around Bangkok a little bit. I’d been here 3 years ago a remembered a dirty, smelly, crowded and poverty infested city. Today everything’s clean though in need of a paint job, the bums have been moved on elsewhere, there’s less need to push your way along the footpath and the smell’s even tolerable. Maybe my impressions will change, but it feels like the town’s been cleaned up – sort of like the effort Sydney made to become Disneyland for the Olympics. It’s still disorientating though not because of the countless people and swirling streets but because of the constant repetition of the same chain stores.

SMELL COUNT: Reduced
7-11 COUNT: Countless