Bangkok: style & taste

Six years on and marginally better oriented, I am in love with Bangkok and now relish getting lost in Chinatown. When I stumble into conversations with travelers who can't cannot wait to "leave this place and go to the beach," part of me wants to let them in on the secret: They're sitting smack in the middle of what amounts to the Rio of the Orient, its tropical sensuality cast through a Buddhist prism and, incongruously, projected onto an outwardly hideous canvas in the heart of Southeast Asia.

Is Bangkok still the gritty sprawling beast of a place most travelers hear about? Of course, and I hope it always will be. It's this crab-like personality -- hard on the outside, soft and sweet within -- that makes it so rewarding. Traffic still snarls and sends fumes into the air. Even in the so-called cool season, the air is like a curtain, scented with garlic, sweat, urine, and incense. But now it is easier than ever to discriminate the good from the bad. Transportation is one reason: In the last five years, the city has gotten an elevated rail system and an efficient subway. They have begun to transform and connect the city in ways once unimaginable.

One could, for example, catch the subway from Sukhumvit Road to Hualamphong train station and be there in 15 minutes; even in light traffic, driving could take an hour. It's just as easy to SkyTrain out to Chatuchak (Mo Chit station), where the famed Weekend Market is held, in 20 minutes.

Food lovers should head out at least an hour early to wander Or Tor Kor, a government-run market that specializes in fruits, organic produce, and houses hordes of cooks and vendors. It is possible to taste the Malay- and Indian-influenced cooking of Southern Thailand, the ginger and garlic-flecked grilled chicken known as kai yang from Esarn, and tuck into a golden-hued pineapple from Si Racha that is so sweet and complex it is reminiscent of Sauternes.