Street Smart Sukhumvit
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Sukhumvit is the 5th Avenue Of Bangkok - and there's now a superb blog dedicated to documenting Sukhumvit's scores of fascinating streets
Sukhumvit is Bangkok's longest and possibly grandest road. Just like New York City's 5th Avenue, it runs through the heart of The Big Mango and has hundreds of streets (or sois, as they're known in Thai) leading off the main drag. Each of these streets has their own character and collection of different shops - some are glitzy, some are sleazy (quite a few, actually), some are leafy, some are mega rich, some are dirt poor. A 10 minute cab ride on Sukhumvit can take you from one soi to another but make you feel like you're in a different world.
A while ago I thought it would be an interesting project to try and document Sukhumvit from top to bottom. It's the expat heart of Bangkok and so it's a riot of different cultures rubbing against each other. The Arabs and Africans live at the beginning of Sukhumvit around Sois 1 to 10; the British and Japanese live side by side from Sois 10 to 50; and then the high society Thais (hi-so, as they're known) live on Sukhumvit Soi 50 and above, before Sukhumvit itself hits the industrial area of On Nut and beyond. I thought about going from one end of Sukhumvit to the other (a la the late Bernard Levin's TV series and book A Walk Up Fifth Avenue) but it was a gargantuan task.
However, Street Smart Sukhumvit has already made an impressive start on documenting life on Sukhumvit, combining lots of photos of everyday life along with zippy commentary that gives a real taste of what it's like on this main artery of Bangkok. There's pictures of street life, snippets of overheard conversations, quirky sightings - it's much more than a dry directory of what's on the street. Info is arranged by topic rather than street, but the layout is a big colourful melting pot where you can just jump in and see what you can find. It captures the organised chaos of Sukhumvit perfectly. Definitely worth checking out to a sense of what Bangkok has to offer in all senses.
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