Bangkok Street Style

first via Namtanw; second via Style Anywhere

As you walk the streets of Bangkok, you encounter street vendor upon street vendor of clothes and shoes - many not so great, but some quite tempting - in addition to the shiny malls and the small boutiques. I cannot even begin to describe the difference between Phnom Penh and Bangkok, two cities that are connected by a cheap one hour flight on Air Asia. It boggles my mind every time I step foot across the border.  Geographically and even ethnically, the two cities are not so disparate, but they are years and years apart in modernity and infrastructure, in order and offerings.

I'm always amused by the uniform I see in Bangkok, which shifts with each visit.  This visit, I could not stop seeing scallop-edged tap shorts with blouses tucked in, amongst the long dresses and skirts I saw  late last year.  At Chatuchak Market, where I spent a good part of Saturday, I saw vintage silk button-down blouses over and over again, all with their sleeves rolled up, which made me think of this uniform.

The city is heating up.  One day, I was just overwhelmed by the swarm of people on BTS, Bangkok's sky train and by the traffic jams below on the streets.  I had a flashback to my first visit to London (over 10 years ago!!), when I was going opposite the work rush on the Tube, a wall of people moving in unison.