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Peoplespotting
More than any other place in Thailand, Bangkok offers wonderful opportunities for just sitting and watching people go by. Here's a partial checklist:
- University student — Many of Thailand's universities continue to enforce a uniform, and what a uniform it is: for girls, it's a sheer white blouse with a short black skirt, and the little shiny logo button on the blouse tells the cognoscenti which particular university she is attending. Boys wear a white dress shirt and black trousers.
- Office lady — Sharply clad in infinite variations of solid pastel shades, this human houseplant mans customer service desks and pours tea in offices across the capital.
- Bargirl — Mostly short and dark-skinned farm girls from the provinces, a bargirl can be spotted a mile away thanks to her pink hotpants and the kilo of gold around her neck. Often found in happy financial symbiosis with the sexpat.
- Sexpat — Fifty-plus, bald, beer belly, stained shirt, lovestruck expression and a hairy arm wrapped around a girl too young to be his daughter. He's found what he's looking for.
- Ladyboy (kathoey) — Either tall, large-handed, wears too much makeup, possesses an Adam's apple and has large breasts... or has accomplished the art of camouflage so well that you just filed her/him as an office lady or bargirl.
- Expat — A farang walking about purposefully in dress shirt and long trousers, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it's 35�C outside. For extra credit, try to distinguish between the scruffier English teacher type and the jet-setting expense package type. Or try classifying them by the old joke about the three types of expat — missionaries, mercenaries and misfits.
- Yuppie — Like every other big city, Bangkok boasts a coterie of young professional types who are hip, well-educated and relatively affluent. Similar to the Expat, they usually sport business attire and are likely to be hurried — except they probably know a shortcut, and they aren't sweating so profusely.
- Khao San Road vagabonds — Braided hair, bead necklace, sarongs, shorts and floppy pants, either on their way to or just back from the beaches. Dazed and bewildered when torn apart from the familiar surroundings of Khao San Road.
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Most of Bangkok's sights are concentrated on the island of 