Not Sinatra's Kind of Town...maybe

My daily sojourn takes me through the major newspapers of the English-speaking world. As such, the London Telegram is on the list. Today, a writer named Malcom Pryce posted an article claiming that Bangkok, Thailand, was "the world's most intoxicating city; part opium den, part Venus flytrap for the soul". He continued to glorify the city as the most amazing place he's been and noted how much he misses it when away. "Bull hockey," I say. It's definitely not Chicago (Sinatra's town) or New York (another Sinatra favorite), and Bangkok is definitely not my kind of town though memories of my stay there verge on the interestingly hilarious, at times. To wit:
On our way to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we had to catch a flight out of Bangkok. In the hustle and foreignness of it all, we ended up in line for a completely different airline than the one on which we held tickets. "No problem," the ticket agent said, "Get on our plane, we're going there, too!" More than a bit nervously, we boarded, but were not even seated when the plane bgan to taxi toward takeoff. Facing imminent death or a landing somewhere in China, we actually DID end up in the right airport a short time later. Wierd. And then, there's this one:
A teacher from Thailand was our guide on a return trip through Bangkok: Nang had been an exchange teacher in Algoma for a year previously and was anxious to show us around. Naturally, we headed for a restaurant which she highly recommended. As I was sitting there getting ready to eat my dinner which contained some kind of bird meat, my fork struck what looked to be a promising portion of the bird...and an explosion of liquid showered up: I had struck the eyeball! EYEBALL? Not at the Colonel's place...ever! "Check, please!" That bird was definitely in disguise. So then we're off for a walk through the streets.
We sauntered past an open doorway in which lounged young men in tuxedos and dinner jackets with young women in glittering gowns. At this, my sweetie said, "Oh, is this prom season in Bangkok?" Imagine her surprise and our uncontrolled mirth when our hostess indicated that the people thus adorned were "for hire." Prom, indeed! I always heard prom was the most dangerous time of the year, and given the incidence of STDs in Asia, it was also true in Bangkok!
All of that was more or less local color, and we handled it with aplomb, but there were a couple of things I could not abide:
1. we could actually SEE the air! No pollution standards such as catlytic converters made the streets a veritable cesspool of exhaust. Even the policemen directing traffic wore surgical masks. Our eyes watered, and our throats deteriorated to raw, festering masses. It was awful. Then, there was the noise.
2. Walking down the street side by side, we found it difficult to carry on a conversation without shouting...literally. Traffic was horrendous, and the noise was deafening. From our hotel room on the 13th floor, it sounded as if we were on the curb all night. I have never wished for peace and quiet so earnestly, even when babies were squalling for hours on end.
Much of Asia was interesting and fascinating...just not Bangkok...from my perspective. You might like it, but I'll take Frank's towns any day.