Fifty paces down a Bangkok street will acquaint your olfactors with chilis, roses, machine oil, car exhaust, garlic, durian, lime, sewer stench, fish, incense, dog shit, knock-off colognes, tea, wretch, coconut, cilantro, gasoline, basil, whiskey, and an assortment of unidentifiable aromas. Bangkok is loud, too. In fact, the volume on virtually everything seems cranked to eleven. People talk loudly, eat loudly and walk loudly. Construction sites are loud, restaurants are loud, and markets are loud.
Loud music blasts out of every shop.
Even the buzz from the strip clubs' neon signs is unusually loud. Traffic is loud. Cars whine, buses grind and tiny scooters make more noise than jake-breaking semis. Bangkok's traffic doesn't offer the high-speed chaos of, say, Moscow. Nor is it as terrifyingly death-brushing as that found on Southeast Asian highways.