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Some thirty years back, Thanon Sukhumvit, aka Sukhumvit Road, had a barren and coarse façade lacking the new trendy buildings and configuration of elevated tracks and colonnaded support structures that make up today’s sky train. Street potholes were deep and maybe there weren’t so many vendors invading every inch of existing pavement. Notably less urbanized than today, the tallest buildings on the road were the peaks of Buddhist temples. In early pictures I’ve seen, the area resembled a labyrinth of sweat shops and narrow apartment houses closed in by bamboo doors and shutters.
Thanon Sukhumvit, one of the chief arteries of central Bangkok -- accommodating a lucrative ‘red light district’ -- conjures up visions of lat
e-night hawkers, prostitutes, burning incense and blatant vulgarity. I know, I know, it’s a different culture and I shouldn’t judge it by my own moral and cultural standards. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to. Sorry.
Whenever I am out and about in the Sukhumvit night, alongside the smells of fried garlic, onions and pork that fill the night air, I can’t help but notice the gory and gaudy masquerade of humanity swaggering by: the tourists -- observing in overwhelming stupefaction; -- the couples -- mixed and same sex; older man/ teen woman duos --; and the aberrations, the sex unidentified individuals, katoeys >
or ladyboys, female impersonators.
Bangkok’s musky, moist air hangs in thick halos around the bare bulbs above vendors’ carts illuminating the white, heavily made-up faces of the men and women in the street as rivulets of sweat strategically meander down their dark, unmade-up necks. Yes, both sexes in this town use powders and cosmetics freely. Men are just as careful of their skin, body and hair as women are; a new concept in my own cultural background.
Clubs where the young and not so young partake of beneficial massage and party all night stay open till dawn; everything here is for sale while sophisticated, mini-skirted, high booted young things entice costumers by offering arrangements to suit every budget. 
The explosion of bars, massage parlors, restaurants and hotels in the area proliferated during the Vietnam War when catering to the needs of American GIs on R&R turned out to be Thailand’s ‘charitable act’ in the war effort.
Daylight modifies and softens the appearance of Sukhumvit Road as shop-keepers and tailor shops open their doors to a more mundane clientele. Sukhumvit Road during the day witnesses fruit and vegetable soi markets; monks on their alms rounds; a selection of beggars; occasional elephants on their way to a work-site nearby, and waves of loud, polluted traffic moving in and out of people’s consciousness.
Walking from soi 4 towards Phrom Phong and beyond, one can still encounter -- in the middle of an internal soi -- the old colonial-type bungalows surrounded by palms and banana trees such as those I remember from my early days in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. In those calmer areas one can still find the older restaurants; there are some Indian and regional Middle Eastern ones that have survived the onslaught of progress and endured the emergence of fancy, new bistros.
From soi Nana towards soi LangSuan, crossing the railroad tracks and walking under the Chalerm Mahanakhon Expressway, an assortment of Arabic cafés and fast food fare can be found. Numerous massage parlors and projects under different stages of construction also line the narrow sois in the area.
We are lucky to have arrived at a time when the Nana Center has opened for business; it contains beauty salons, a food court, a liquor store, several diverse shops and a Tops supermarket where I do some of my ‘European’ shopping. In addition, across Sukhumvit, in the Ploenchit Building, there’s a Villa supermarket, which, even though expensive, is good for meats and cheeses.
Since our arrival in Bangkok, I have seen major changes come to soi 11; up-scale looking bars, and new upgraded side-walks -- even if those are always taken-up by ambulant carts selling foods of all kinds from 10 AM till late at night -- a major annoyance, I think, since pedestrians have to walk in the street through the tunnels made by the carts, the parked cars, the speeding cars and the tuk-tu
k drivers that sit in their stationary vehicles picking their toes as they wait around for customers.
In pictures and from above, Thanon Sukhumvit looks dazzling in all its contemporary glass and steel structures. The BTS sky-train’s pillars and upper support give it an air of singular advancement few roads enjoy; however, down at street and traffic level, the picture changes drastically. Is the present infrastructure sound enough to support all the new development? I worry about that, and hope all ambitious planning for the city is carried-out by scrupulous, conscientious and dependable law makers and engineers.
Underneath the Bangkok streets run the elderly network of sewers carved out of the old canals that used to criss-cross the city; cesspool smells rise from them and easily merge with the frying noodles and shrimp that vendors cook - street side - from thei
r carts, while stray dogs drool and undisturbed diners on plastic chairs, take pleasure in a repast with friends.
Thanon Sukhumvit is a historic thoroughfare and an important inter province highway in Thailand; it stretches from east to west across the city changing its name every few miles all the way to the Cambodian border. Lined with all the new amenities, and the odd reminders of another era, Thanon Sukhumvit reflects the pace that’s altering the city’s dynamics.
By Edie Wilcox, September 2006
Some thirty years back, Thanon Sukhumvit, aka Sukhumvit Road, had a barren and coarse façade lacking the new trendy buildings and configuration of elevated tracks and colonnaded support structures that make up today’s sky train. Street potholes were deep and maybe there weren’t so many vendors invading every inch of existing pavement. Notably less urbanized than today, the tallest buildings on the road were the peaks of Buddhist temples. In early pictures I’ve seen, the area resembled a labyrinth of sweat shops and narrow apartment houses closed in by bamboo doors and shutters.
Thanon Sukhumvit, one of the chief arteries of central Bangkok -- accommodating a lucrative ‘red light district’ -- conjures up visions of lat
e-night hawkers, prostitutes, burning incense and blatant vulgarity. I know, I know, it’s a different culture and I shouldn’t judge it by my own moral and cultural standards. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to. Sorry.
Whenever I am out and about in the Sukhumvit night, alongside the smells of fried garlic, onions and pork that fill the night air, I can’t help but notice the gory and gaudy masquerade of humanity swaggering by: the tourists -- observing in overwhelming stupefaction; -- the couples -- mixed and same sex; older man/ teen woman duos --; and the aberrations, the sex unidentified individuals, katoeys >
or ladyboys, female impersonators.
Bangkok’s musky, moist air hangs in thick halos around the bare bulbs above vendors’ carts illuminating the white, heavily made-up faces of the men and women in the street as rivulets of sweat strategically meander down their dark, unmade-up necks. Yes, both sexes in this town use powders and cosmetics freely. Men are just as careful of their skin, body and hair as women are; a new concept in my own cultural background.
Clubs where the young and not so young partake of beneficial massage and party all night stay open till dawn; everything here is for sale while sophisticated, mini-skirted, high booted young things entice costumers by offering arrangements to suit every budget. 
The explosion of bars, massage parlors, restaurants and hotels in the area proliferated during the Vietnam War when catering to the needs of American GIs on R&R turned out to be Thailand’s ‘charitable act’ in the war effort.
Daylight modifies and softens the appearance of Sukhumvit Road as shop-keepers and tailor shops open their doors to a more mundane clientele. Sukhumvit Road during the day witnesses fruit and vegetable soi markets; monks on their alms rounds; a selection of beggars; occasional elephants on their way to a work-site nearby, and waves of loud, polluted traffic moving in and out of people’s consciousness.
Walking from soi 4 towards Phrom Phong and beyond, one can still encounter -- in the middle of an internal soi -- the old colonial-type bungalows surrounded by palms and banana trees such as those I remember from my early days in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. In those calmer areas one can still find the older restaurants; there are some Indian and regional Middle Eastern ones that have survived the onslaught of progress and endured the emergence of fancy, new bistros.
From soi Nana towards soi LangSuan, crossing the railroad tracks and walking under the Chalerm Mahanakhon Expressway, an assortment of Arabic cafés and fast food fare can be found. Numerous massage parlors and projects under different stages of construction also line the narrow sois in the area.
We are lucky to have arrived at a time when the Nana Center has opened for business; it contains beauty salons, a food court, a liquor store, several diverse shops and a Tops supermarket where I do some of my ‘European’ shopping. In addition, across Sukhumvit, in the Ploenchit Building, there’s a Villa supermarket, which, even though expensive, is good for meats and cheeses.
Since our arrival in Bangkok, I have seen major changes come to soi 11; up-scale looking bars, and new upgraded side-walks -- even if those are always taken-up by ambulant carts selling foods of all kinds from 10 AM till late at night -- a major annoyance, I think, since pedestrians have to walk in the street through the tunnels made by the carts, the parked cars, the speeding cars and the tuk-tu
k drivers that sit in their stationary vehicles picking their toes as they wait around for customers.
In pictures and from above, Thanon Sukhumvit looks dazzling in all its contemporary glass and steel structures. The BTS sky-train’s pillars and upper support give it an air of singular advancement few roads enjoy; however, down at street and traffic level, the picture changes drastically. Is the present infrastructure sound enough to support all the new development? I worry about that, and hope all ambitious planning for the city is carried-out by scrupulous, conscientious and dependable law makers and engineers.
Underneath the Bangkok streets run the elderly network of sewers carved out of the old canals that used to criss-cross the city; cesspool smells rise from them and easily merge with the frying noodles and shrimp that vendors cook - street side - from thei
r carts, while stray dogs drool and undisturbed diners on plastic chairs, take pleasure in a repast with friends.
Thanon Sukhumvit is a historic thoroughfare and an important inter province highway in Thailand; it stretches from east to west across the city changing its name every few miles all the way to the Cambodian border. Lined with all the new amenities, and the odd reminders of another era, Thanon Sukhumvit reflects the pace that’s altering the city’s dynamics.
By Edie Wilcox, September 2006
