Bangkok Dangerous

Borrowing a title from the less successful remake of what (I hear) was a good film may seem desperate, and it is.

I just couldn't come up with anything better to describe this sprawling, vibrant, discordant city.

Bangkok is dangerous, but not for fear of personal harm - at least no more so than Mexico City, or Los Angeles even. This alternate City of Angels is dangerous by the way it changes your view on the World. It's dangerous by virtue of forcing you to experience the gulf between wealth and poverty prevalent in this part of the globe. It's the same gulf that exists in the US and Europe, but it is stealthier in those places. Here in Bangkok it's right upon you and unmissable.

Visiting Bangkok, and more especially if you venture outside the city to other regions of Thailand, you realize how central this land and it's people are to the Asian economy. And we all know by now just how important the Asian economy is to 'western' countries.

But even more than economic impact, Bangkok looks and feels like a cultural nexus; a place where problems will be met and solved, if they are to be solved at all.

And that is why this city is 'dangerous'. If events go wrong here there will be repercussions across the region, and perhaps the World.