General Thoughts about Bangkok

Bangkok, I have found, is a nice place. The food is good and the city is relatively clean. One thing that I found to be quite surprising is that there are a huge number of people here who speak legible English and almost all signs are printed in both Thai (sample below) and English:



General points:

• It is fairly easy to move around here. There are taxi's and tuk-tuk's everywhere and these guys are generally aggressive, following you around and showing off pictures of girls you may be interested in.
• The written form of the Thai language, other than numbers, is a Brahmic (Indic) script. Since almost everything is written in both languages in Bangkok, a basic understanding of this script is not mandatory.
  
• The Thai people seem to be the friendliest people I have ever encountered. Everyone here is interested in helping out or talking. The service in restaurants and the hotel I am staying at is extremely attentive.
• The food is delicious. Today I had a Japanese feast for lunch, in the states, the equivalent lunch would have been about 60-70% more expensive.
  
• Public transportation (sky train) is quick, cheap and clean.
• Everything can be found in the streets, from complete meals, hair cuts, clothes alterations to key makers, these vendors are quite flexible.
• There is a large number of middle aged white men around here.
  

Man receiving haircut in the street:




Streetside alterations: