Early in the morning, when I’m on my way to the Swedish Fitness24 (which has several gyms here), the street is mainly adorned with the leftovers from the night before. I see night owls of every conceivable kind – several who really ought to reconsider their lifestyle choices – stagger past me or shout something cheeky I don’t understand when they see my purposeful stride clad in gym garb.

One day, around lunchtime, I encountered a small horde of middle-aged Spanish-speaking tourists. Most of them wore oversized sunglasses and tiny shoulder bags, clutched tightly against their bodies with one hand. With the other, they snapped photos and shot video clips on their phones.

The other day, I ran into a group of seven or eight chatty elderly Chinese retirees in green and yellow hats, doing their best to follow their female guide through the already congested sidewalk.

In white, sensible trainers, the elderly women and men shuffled forward. The guide kept the group moving with well-rehearsed shouts and persistent flag-waving. Buses, motorcycles, cyclists, and tuk-tuks pass in a constant stream along Sukhumvit Road. It’s calmer on the side streets (soi), but traffic there is faster – and more treacherous.

Above Sukhumvit, Skytrains glide in and out of Asok station, packed with people heading to or from work, home, school, daycare, hospital, or a shopping trip. The noise from the street is so intense and layered that it’s hard to distinguish individual sources. Talk about surround sound. After a while, you just stop trying.

One afternoon this week, I put on my headphones, turned the volume up to eleven, and walked a few blocks while air-guitaring an old favorite, White Sister. People stared. But many smiled too. I think.

Bangkok isn’t cooking right now. It’s simmering. At this time of year, the temperature is manageable – almost pleasant. Still, the heat and humidity settle like a lid over the city’s sidewalks and inevitably creep inside your clothes until everything sticks. The air is saturated with smells – sizzling street food, diesel exhaust, over-applied perfume, tobacco smoke from bars spilling onto the sidewalk. I pass through a small cloud carrying the sweet note of a joint someone nearby has just fired up.

Like the soundscape, an olfactory cacophony emerges – repulsive yet also alluring. 1980s hits seep from open bar doors, blending with loud laughter and fragments of conversation. A constant rumble reigns. Bangkok’s labored breathing.

Everything happens at once. But only the friendly guy selling fake Rolexes and the shifty dude hauling a carry-on suitcase filled with God knows what inside still manage to catch my attention, despite my having passed them countless times without showing any interest in either’s wares.

The hotel sits on a street with an almost uncountable number of bars. The big ones are truly enormous. The smaller ones have just four or five stools. Men seated closest to the street wear tank tops or brightly colored tees. Bar girls dart back and forth with drinks, flirting lightly – mostly, perhaps, to prompt more orders.

There’s frequent toasting. Ashtrays are overflowing. Monthly savings goals are temporarily suspended. This is where people come to live in the present and be in the moment. Almost like an unironic field exercise, Charlotte and I sat down yesterday at one of the neighborhood’s seediest watering holes.

A man my age, with roughly the same “hairstyle,” had arranged empty bottles around his part of the bar. I suspect he was keeping score to make sure he kept to his limit. Nearby, another man appeared to be traveling with ChatGPT. I heard him ask his phone, “So where would you like to eat tonight, my darling?”  The voice replied, “How about Italian, Sweetie? Want me to check nearby places with good reviews?”

When night falls, those 357 meters become tougher – and more cynical. Along the rail separating sidewalk and road stand long, slender figures in tight dresses and vividly colored bodysuits. I find it hard to tell who is what. I watch a few middle-aged men – possibly Korean – approach a small cluster of those lanky figures.

Further along, a woman in white and another in black stand several meters apart, lifted by towering heels and heavy makeup.

Time, as we know, is not easily concealed. On the way back we zigzag past hustlers from India, Africa, and Thailand selling things we neither want nor need.

I’m reminded of Canal Street and Times Square in the mid-1980s – seedy, slummy, sleazy, and strangely fascinating. Like a film that could never be directed.

Jon, a Swede, sat next to Nok, the bar’s manager, where we stopped for a beer the other night. Jon mostly stared out at the street. Perhaps he was thinking about his apartment in Eskilstuna, about the 85-inch TV he barely had time to install before flying here. Nok looked equally blasé as TikTok clips flickered across her cracked screen. She laughed, showing Pelle two AI dogs chatting in an AI-generated podcast studio.

On the way home, we passed another dozen bars, filled with men and couples from everywhere. There’s room for everyone. Past Burger King, New York Pizza, Taco Bell, a woman selling diluted pomegranate juice, two food trucks – one with fruit, the other woking Pad Thai so fiercely flames licked the ceiling.

So many impressions. Nothing new, yet all of it demands attention. It’s dirty, abrasive, rough – and the pulse is irresistible. I stop. Listen. Smell. Look. Feel. Camera out. Click, click.

This is my third month away from everyday life. As in 1988, when I first came to Asia, I’ll soon return home with my mind and heart full. But now I long for home. Above all, I miss Elle. And I actually miss the emptiness of Swedish winter. How’s that for masochism?

I miss our bed and the certainty that the only ones who’ve drooled on my pillow are Charlotte or me.While most people want a vacation from everyday life, everyday life becomes, for me, a vacation from traveling.