Tuesday, November 12, 2024

What is it like to live in Bangkok?

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Bangkok is a hectic city to say the least. Always on the move and always noisy. I lived there from 2009–2016 before returning to my home country. I recently visited again to marry my wife and realized I’d outgrown it. Where I once saw mystery and charm I only saw a haphazard, messy, polluted city.

Bangkok is a really huge city and essentially bleeds into Nonthaburi, a province north of Bangkok which, although not actually part of the city is very alike and therefore seems to extend its sprawl even further.

The MRT system (mass rapid transport) has recently been extended all the way up to Bang Yai, so you can get around the city very conveniently by train.

Yaowarat, or china town, is still probably my favorite part of Bangkok.

For such a cosmopolitan city, the standard of English is very poor and indeed, you’ll find that your average tour boat guide down in Phuket will have better English than say a business man in Bangkok.

There is a lot of single western men in Bangkok who are clearly there for the girls and “teaching English” is their excuse. These kind of men have very little respect for women and see them only as a piece of meat to be used for their pleasure. They will often have inflated egos and be somewhat disillusioned about their place in the world. While they were nobodies back home, they now believe they’re god’s gift to women. I suppose it’s a phase you might go through in Bangkok but hopefully you’ll grow out of it.

The roads are insane and I usually feel like I’m going to be in a road accident like every time I take a taxi or motorbike taxi. The Thais just have their own way of driving and for the most part it works.

Its hot. Insanely hot and clammy. The infrastructure is a mess but works. You’ll go from tall glass towers to derelict concrete buildings block by block. You’ll see Thai people living in small town houses right next to millionaires’ mansions. It’s a dichotomy. Extreme opposites everywhere you look.

Its definitely a fun place to live but I’ve had my fill of it. I’ll return to Thailand one day but me and wife plan to move to the quieter north.

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