Bangkok is a genuine major world-class city of 23 million, and extraordinarily photogenic. With its deafening noise levels, horrible pollution and searing heat, it might also be a vision of the future. A successful one.

It runs nearly 24 hours a day, fueled by tourism, the official primary industry of Thailand. It is so hot that as much as possible takes place indoors. Years ago, they moved the vast majority of street food vendors into the gigantic shopping malls, turning them into meccas of great, inexpensive meals. Food courts are the pride, not the bane of shopping malls in Bangkok. The restaurants shine too. We never ate out so much, and never had a bad meal anywhere. Great food is what defined our trip: Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Street Food Court	Night Market Street Food

The malls link themselves to the skybridges across major boulevards, and the Skywalks along those boulevards, framed by the Skytrain supports, a hugely useful alternative to the impossible traffic of the city. You have only to wait the five long minutes of red lights to see why renting a car is masochistic. Thousands of cars, all idling with air-conditioning running is a good basis for the less than pure air that often shrouds the city. In the month we were there, air quality never once fell into the safe zone. Add the air-conditioning that runs 24 hours a day from every home and apartment, continuously pumping hot air into the painfully hot atmosphere, and it is no surprise people cough and take public transport rather than walk if possible, unlike so many other of the great cities of the world. About one in ten wear masks all day long, because breathiing can be painful. Public-facing employees are required to wear them. You never see a car window down, unless the vehicle is parked and the driver is sleeping in it.

It is never quiet, with all the mechanicals running the gigantic hotels, malls, and office building air conditioning systems, and the traffic din never relents. An electronic sign on a wall up the road from us shows the ambient noise level to be over 77db.

Noise pollution monitor	Skywalk beneath Skytrain tracks

But while air might be filthy and loud, the ground is spotless. The plazas, sidewalks, hallways, Skytrain and Metro stations are all perfectly clean, all the time. There’s no garbage piling up on the sidewalks, no derelict cars on cement blocks parked on the streets, or crumbling asphalt and potholes. Because labor is cheap, armies of sweepers and cleaners keep the city as pristine as any city I’ve been to.

We stayed downtown, with a Skytrain station right on the corner. To the north, the half dozen major malls of the city around Siam Center. To the south, the Silom collection of office towers (and their food courts), including the Mahanakhon, the 78 story, tallest building in the country (and the view from our apartment, beyond the massive and heavily guarded US Embassy residential compound).

To get to the Royal Palace compound, we had to take the Skytrain to the river, and a river express boat up to the palaces pier, only to find I couldn’t get in because you could see my shins below my shorts. So I had to buy a pair of Thai pantaloons to put over them . Between the extraordinary heat and the tens of thousands of tourists, it was never relaxing.

I picked the November-December period because it was the driest, coolest period of the year, meaning a low of 80 and a high of 95. And windless. Every day. The rest of the year it is muggy and even hotter and is pouring rain, sometimes in flood proportions. The sidewalks are good foot higher than the gutter. As it was, the northern provinces reported massive flooding nearly every day. So taking a side trip up to Chiang Mai and the elephant shelters was something we didn’t risk.

Spirit guarding palace	Solid gold god, Erawan outdoor shrine

We immediately bought Rabbit cards for the Skytrain so we didn’t have to line up for the ticket machines every trip, and it was a very smart move. Unfortunately, the Skytrain from the airport is a different company, and does not sell such cards or accept Rabbit cards. Same for the Metro, which wouldn’t issue us stored value cards because we did not have Thai phone numbers or bank accounts. We had to buy station to station coded plastic tokens to enter and exit for each trip. So some things need rethinking.

The Skytrain charges about US 40 cents from station to station, so we used it to go one stop rather arrive soaked in sweat. The trains are well air-conditioned, and totally wrapped in thematic ads, even the windows, which has the advantage of preventing the sun from heating up the cars, while still allowing riders to see out. They run dependably every three to four minutes – a true people mover system. There is simply no better way to get around Bangkok.

Thais all seem to have two jobs: one during the day and selling at night markets from about 6pm. The city really comes alive at night, with pop-up markets in building plazas and on streets where the sidewalks are wide enough. Food and every kind of products can be purchased right off the street. They are enormously popular and crowded. And everyone eats out all the time. Meals are just astonishingly inexpensive. If you told me that in Bangkok they regularly build condos without defined kitchens, I would readily believe it.

Pratunam Night Market	Standstill traffic

Our own kitchen posed a problem. Thais are shorter, and so standard counter height is considerably lower. This is the first place where I towered over the stove exhaust hood. I had to bend down and twist in order to see the back burner at all. Preparing anything resulted in backache.

The shopping malls vary in their themes, from trashy to highest end. The Siam Paragon featured a floor of car manufacturers, with retail storefronts and the actual cars on display in them, from Maserati to Rolls-Royce, plus Teslas and Xpengs. The malls all have food courts, and a couple had the largest supermarkets we had ever seen in the world. We shopped for food at Big C, a two floor extravaganza that hosted a crushing number of thousands of shoppers every hour of the day. Much like the Skytrain, regardless of when you entered, it was always crowded.

Thais are not big drinkers, outside of beer. Liquor store sales are limited to meal times, from 11:00 to 2:00, and from 5:00 to midnight. Restaurants all serve a variety fruit juices and smoothies instead. The bars, beyond the hotel versions, seem to be relegated to side streets, in groups, often with sleazy male, female, or ladyboy shows attached. Cannabis stores though, are everywhere.

Wat Arun	Palace wall detail	Wat Pho

Street names and addresses are challenging for westerners. Addresses contain both the old and the new number, and Bangkok has the very odd feature of naming all the intersecting streets the same as the main thoroughfare. So for example, Sukhumvit Road, a major Skytrain route and traffic-clogged artery, has intersecting streets like Sukhumvit Soi 1, 3, 5… up to about Soi 90. Soi means alley, but many of them are large wide streets in their own right. On the north side of Sukhumvit Road, itself, all the Sois are odd numbered, and south, even numbered, which helps a little, though you can walk for blocks before finding a crossing point or skybridge.

Less than arterial streets don’t go very far. There is no way to cut across anywhere, because almost nothing terminates in an intersection. Minor streets bend and meander, but mostly just dead end and don’t hook up to anything. This forces all the traffic onto the major arteries and helps make driving nearly impossible. The Thai solution is not better zoning, but motorbikes, vastly outnumbering cars, weaving in and out of lanes, running red lights, running up on the sidewalks and gathering up ahead of all the cars when they encounter a red light they can’t challenge. They also serve as one-passenger taxis, far better than sitting endlessly in a real cab. Tuk Tuks, tourists are warned, are to be avoided, because they will take passengers way out of their way to try to get them to shop some place where the driver has a deal.

Motorbikes piling up at a 5 minute light	Our place (red dot)

The city is wonderfully photogenic. The temples are extravagant towers of gold and colorful ceramics, gold Buddhas abound, and all kinds of colorful spirits guard entrances and rooftops. This tradition has carried into the skyscraper age, as every building seeks to hide its boring glass tower essence with unique crowns, unusual wrappings and colorful lighting on their frames. The Mahanakhon tower looks in places like a Jenga stack, ready to fall. Its dark gray skin , combined with the ins and outs of Jenga blocks makes it look like it is in an advanced state of deterioration, but when the sun hits it, it gleams of silver blue.

After three weeks, when we had visited most of what wanted and could recognize landmarks from above, we went to Mahankhon and up to the 78th floor roof deck. I was surprised that despite being 1125 feet up, it was not the least bit windy, and was more searingly hot than on the ground. The views were of course, spectacular. Towers of all shapes and sizes everywhere. Sprawl as far as the eye could see. Surprisingly few bridges across the Chao Phraya river. A dozen or so helicopter pads atop buildings all around us. The haze of pollution prevented any kind of great photo, but the experience was unforgettable. Steps up were covered in plush, comfy gold seats, and a patio at the very top had sofas and tables for those not in a hurry. The Tray, a glass floor extension out over the abyss, did not provide any kind of great view, but tested a lot of visitors’ fear of heights. Back on the ground, an absolute maze of market stalls selling all kinds of food to feed lunch to a hundred thousand office workers in Silom lured us in. It was Laai Sap Market, the biggest in the country, running for endless blocks and alleys, in buildings and outside. Bangkok is really centrally located in southeast Asia. It is a two hour flight to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, and even less to Yangon, Phnom Penh and Vientiane. We managed to take advantage of this with a side trip to Hanoi, which was another kind of wild, unexpected city (Everywhere else there was massive flooding and/or monsoon rains). Southeast Asia is a great experience because it is half a world away, entirely different in food and custom, and yet easy to fit in. The energy is infectious, and the living is thrillingly inexpensive for an American.

Managing 23 million people, tens of millions more tourists, in an atmosphere so thick you can see it, in heat so uncomfortable people can only function in air- conditioning is no mean feat. That Bangkok handles it so well speaks well for a potential future of overpopulation, climate change, and pollution. Transit, cleanliness and order are key. They make they it easy to believe a post-apocalyptic monster dystopian city can instead be a livable, enjoyable experience. Somehow, it all works, really well. But I’d hate to be there if the music stops.

Ron M. adapted for Bangkok	Ugliest mug?	Exotic Vermont Curry	Lizard Spray Sale