Even dental care can be an adventure in the context of a big, foreign city. Given Bangkok’s international reputation for excellent medical care, breaking my twenty-four-month dental abstinence in Thailand was an easy choice.

Not my photo, but the cab is the right color. And if you click the photo link at the end of the post, you can read a SE Asian (Malaysian) perspective on the BKK tourist scene.

Originally I planned on tackling the mysterious web of bus routes needed to get from Banglamphu to Siam Square. Two hours before my appointment I was feeling so anxious about screwing up somewhere, I scrapped the whole plan and jumped in a lime-green cab. I failed, however, to recalculate how I should proceed upon arriving in the neighborhood.

Thank god I have a photographic memory from which I could piece together a recollection of a few landmarks and their relationship with the dentist’s office. Lessons learned:
1) Bring the electronic device (with its maps and contact information), even when you don’t think you need it.
2) Always get the hotel reception to write — in Thai — the name of your destination. (Remember that worst English in SE Asia thing? The taxi drivers  know no more English than you know Thai.)

More random observations from your’s truly –

• “There’s a drink for that!” – the city trains in Bangkok have a loop of TV commercials using myriad stereotyped actors to advertise a variety of drinks that come in containers the size of baby food jars. Not sure what each drink does, but it all seems very exciting.

• Waitress uniforms at popular restaurants involve short, one-shoulder dresses that would be beautiful if they weren’t colored to mimic and covered in logos from beer cans.

• 

  A pad thai street vendor

  It surprising, with food available every three steps, that the Thai aren’t more corpulent. Within a block, I saw