Further down Sukumvit is the Rachada strip, a district of enormous luxury hotels and gigantic high-end malls. Nothing there is of human scale and everything there is way out of my price range. I’m reading John Burdett’s novel Bangkok Eight right now. A few hours earlier, I came to the part where his Thai detective hero, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, is abducted and forced to sully his Buddhist purity in the company of three prostitutes. The scene takes place in Rachada; now I understand why. Anyway, in contrast to the area around my much more modest hotel, there are few tourists out on the street, even though some of the hotels here must have in excess of 1,000 rooms. Maybe they are in the malls, in private cars, or in enclosed restaurants.
I also pass by Bangkok police headquarters, and it is here that I see evidence of the recent political disturbances. In addition to the permanent wrought iron fence around the police compound, there are now rolls of razor wire just inside the fence and policemen decked out in riot gear every twenty meters. There are also empty trucks designed for carrying people parked all over the compound, though whether these are for transporting police or detainees is unclear to me.
I like this place