Bangkok

Arrival: If you arriving by tourist bus chances are they'll drop you off outside their favorite guest-house on Ko Sarn Road (see below). Arriving by local bus will plunk you down on the outskirts of town where your best bet (especially at night) is a metered taxi. Trains pull into the huge and surprisingly nice Hualampong station, right in the middle of downtown. The station has a good tourist office (only listen to the people at the Info desk, anyone walking around offering to help you 'find' a hotel or taxi is just a tout).

Most travelers will be flying into the giant Don Muang International Airport about 45 minutes from downtown (4 hours at rush hour). You can change money 24 hours a day and left luggage is around $1/day. Currently the train station at the airport is out of service. The very convenient airport bus runs 3 time an hour from outside both terminals from 6am - 11pm. Buy a ticket (100 bhat) at the booth. If you're going to Ko Sarn Road, you'll want bus A2 (it's the 4th stop, just follow the crowd). This is a safe, easy, and relatively quick way to get into town. If you land after 11pm you'll have to take a taxi. The price into town is fixed, but you don't need to buy a ticket from the booth in the terminal.

Local Transportation: Bangkok has a lot to see so the sooner you brave the public transportation system, the better. The first stop should definitely be the Chao Phraya River. Don't get bullied into buying a 'tourist pass'-- the local boats are relatively easy to figure out and cost 3-9 bhat depending on how far you go. For some reason every map numbers the boat stops differently, so just remember the name. There are about a half dozen different types of boat-- express, direct-express, local, express-local-indirect (just kidding), and so on. Usually you can just keep asking for your stop when a boat pulls up and they'll wave you away or shove you on board. The ride itself is more than worth the price of admission. You can see most of Bangkok's major sites from the river: the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Po, Wat Arun, as well as Bangkok's many bridges and waterfront neighborhoods.

Local buses are cheap and crowded and cover every inch of the city. It'll take some effort to figure out where to get on and off, but learning one or two routs can save a lot of walking or taxi money.

The Bangkok Skytrain deserves a visit simply for the Disneyland space-ageness of it. Built in a desperate effort to ease Bangkok's insane traffic and pollution, the Sky Train covers most of downtown and is especially convenient for visiting the Siam Square area. There isn't, unfortunately, a station near Banglampu District (aka the Koh Sarn Road area), but you can take a river ferry to within a few blocks of one of the lines (Tha Sathorn stop, under the Sathorn Bridge).

Finally, what would Bangkok be without the dreaded and loved tuk-tuks? You'll know them when you hear them, you'll hate them when you smell them, these three-wheeled contraptions blaze around Bangkok leaving a black cloud of smog in their wake. For anything more than a 5-10 minute jaunt they really are not worth the price, and the price will usually be 4 or 5 times what it should be anyway. If the rip-off doesn't bother you then maybe the ecological impact will-- these puppies are the main reason locals wear those little cloth face masks. A few days breathing downtown Bangkok "air" and you'll want to invest in one too.

Koh San (aka Khao Sarn or Sahn) Road: Ko San Road is, technically speaking, a small street about three blocks long located about a block from the Chao Phraya River in Banglampu District northwest of downtown Bangkok. To say it is the "backpacker neighborhood" is like saying you can buy a drink on Bourbon Street or that Ireland has beer. Within the Ko San Road area (it started to overflow the original street years ago) you can find over 200 guest-houses, restaurants, bars, tattoo parlors, Internet cafe-bookstore-travel agents and massage/beauty parlors.

On a more practical level there are also pharmacies, money changing booths, ATMs, shoe stores, laundry, and optometrists. Everything a traveler could possibility want or need can be found within a block -- need a new strap for a bag? New contact lenses ? A visa for China? An international student ID or driver's license? It's all here. Everyone is ready and willing to get you where you want to go. Buses depart daily for all corners of South East Asia: the islands in the south (even overnight to Singapore), the border to the North, Phom Phen in 12 hours, Saigon in 18. It's really that easy.

Now for the downside. Koh Sarn is a pit. A seething, churning pit of backpacker debauch. Foreigners outnumber Thais 10-to-1. Drunk hippies pass out on sidewalks; mangy half-wild dogs fight over street scraps; it smells like rotting Daquris and congealed beer. And you won't want to leave. The heat, the booze, the easiness of everything all conspire to keep you from moving more than a block or two in any direction. You meant to leave for Malaysia, but they're showing that movie at that bar, and oh, tomorrow is 2-4-1 Big Chang beers at this club, and you can always buy that bus ticket later-- the travel agency is open 24 hours.

Accommodations and restaurants are hard to recommend, since places spring up and disappear one a monthly basis. Keep in mind that anything on the main drag with be loud and anything with exterior windows will get hot. Try walking a block or two off Koh Sarn proper to find something with a little personality-- or at least a little quiet. The street past the police station end of the block has reasonable little bars and restaurants that are starting to spill out onto the sidewalk. The road gets darker and quieter as it wraps around the wat grounds. The post office end also has a few original spots-- including a great veggie restaurant and cooking school.

Banglampu Sights Banglampu is the district around Koh Sarn Road containing most of Bangkok's "must see" sights. The Grand Palace and Wat Pho are a 20 minute walk from Koh Sarn, but a confusing and hot one if you aren't familiar with the area. If you decide to take a rickshaw, don't listen to anyone telling you they are closed for 'Buddhist holiday' or only in the afternoon. Both sights are open everyday, pretty much all day (dawn till dusk). It's worth giving each place a full day since the heat and glare are very wearing and there is a lot to take in.

Highlights range from the enormous mural of the Ramayana decorating the exterior wall of the Wat Phraa Kaew (part of the Grand Palace compound) to getting a traditional Thai massage at Wat Pho.

Both Wats are actually series of courtyards full of chedhi towers in gold and broken porcelain and smaller wats containing Buddhas of various poise and size. The largest laying Buddha in Asia at Wat Po is a mind blowing sight. At Wat Phraa Kaew, visitors line up around the building for a chance to walk by the Emerald Buddha with offerings of lilies and inscence.

Beyond these two tourist magnets, Banglampu is just an interesting place to walk around. The Banglampu park, just beyond Koh Sarn Road, has a great view of the river and the Japanese-style suspension Bridge. The area just beyond the park has a number of small river-front guest-houses which can be an escape from the noise and chaos of Koh Sarn. The Banglampu market is a good place to pick up cheap Thai knock-offs of everything from jeans to Italian sneakers, as well as a few posh Thai silk stores. Food stalls also abound in this area. Just wander around and get good and lost. you're done, just ask around for Koh Sarn and people will point the way out.

Downtown/ Siam Square

Downtown Bangkok is a lot more grown up, and dressed up, than the rest of Thailand. Suits and heels replace sarongs and flip-flops, restaurants and bars are air conditioned an expensive, movie theathers have ushers, and the shops are more likely to feature Gap or Verchaci than hand woven native rugs or bamboo chopsticks.

Siam Square would like to be the Times Square of Bangkok, and it does a pretty good job. The bar and restaurants here cater to upper class Thais, shopping-spree Mayalsians, and working ex-pats (as opposed to your usual lay-about ex-pats). If you're not up for a trip to the Gap or a $3 pink martini, it's still worth a visit just to see Bangkok-of-the-Future. The four movie theaters in the area a good night out. Less than $4 gets you a few hours in a plush old fashion theater house -- complete with airconditioning and assigned seats. Holliwood and Asian blockbusters are featured nightly, all with the required standing ovation to the king.

Jim Thompson House is full of silk and mystery as well as a good dose of Thai history. The infomous OSS/CIA operative and father of the modern Thai silk industry had this house assembled from six traditional Thai-style houses. The tour is a little expensive but it's the only way to see the complex.

Patpong You might want to take a deep breath and a few shots before heading into the insanity of Patpong. The throngs of middle age tourists shopping for sarongs and chopsticks just makes the sex shows going on in every open door that much more surreal. Prepare to be harrased in a major way by touts armed with laminated 'menus' of acts you can order up. Once inside (or so I've been told) you'll end up spending a ton of money on drinks to watch sad looking barely-teens perform unhygenic acts with various garden-party accessories (lawn darts, ping pongs, etc etc). If you simply must take a peek, make sure you know the deal (door charge, drink minimum, and so on) before you get in arm's reach of the bouncers.