The BTS platform at Ari feels like a greenhouse with a roof. It is 08:40, already 31 degrees, and the air has that wet-blanket weight that says the sky is saving up for something. I am headed to the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, the big glass-and-concrete hub at Siam, partly because it is free, partly because it is air-conditioned, and partly because the Bangkok Biennial is apparently running citywide until the end of September, with new pavilions opening this month. I have been here five days and I still have not seen half of what I want.
The train pulls in with that familiar hydraulic sigh. I tap my Rabbit Card, the one I loaded with a few hundred baht at a 7-Eleven, and the fare for this hop is about 17 to 45 baht depending on distance, call it under a dollar fifty. A one-day unlimited pass is around 150 baht if I am planning to bounce around, which I am not today. A monthly package, 25 trips for about 900 baht, is starting to look like the smarter bet now that I am treating Bangkok as a base rather than a layover. The card itself cost me 200 baht, with 100 of that in value, and it works on the BRT and the Yellow and Pink lines, which I have not touched yet.
The train is mostly office workers and a few tourists with backpacks and that lost look. The doors slide shut with a soft hiss, and we move. Outside the windows, the city is doing its morning thing: a tuk-tuk weaving through traffic with a fare who looks delighted and terrified in equal measure, a monk in orange walking the median with an alms bowl, and the Chao Phraya glinting grey behind the condos. I think about how Bangkok is a city of layers, the skytrain giving you the top one, the canals giving you the one underneath.
I get off at Siam, follow the skywalk over the intersection, and there it is, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, a curved seven-storey cylinder of white and glass, with a ramp spiralling up the inside like a giant nautilus shell. It is free to enter, and the cool air hits me like a blessing. The ground floor has a small exhibition of student work. On the fourth floor, there is a space called Studio, and I am told that from August 7th to 9th, there will be an international performance art exchange called blurborders, themed Intimate Distance, with live artists from Europe and Asia. Today is the 5th, so I miss it, but I make a note. The galleries themselves have rotating shows through September 13th, including one called Local Myths and another about time, all free, all a good place to hide from the afternoon rain.
I take the ramp up, past a cafe and a small gift shop, and stop at a window that looks out over the city. The sky is a bruised purple in the distance, which means a storm is coming. I have learned to read that colour. It is the same colour I saw on day one, standing outside Suvarnabhumi, before the downpour that soaked me in three minutes flat. Down below, a street vendor is packing up his fruit stall, covering the durian with a tarp. August is the tail end of fruit season, so the markets are still groaning with mangosteen and rambutan, and you can get a bag of something sweet for about 20 to 40 baht, less than a dollar.
I duck into the museum cafe, order a cappuccino, which costs about 75 baht, around two dollars, and sit by the window. The rain starts, a sudden hard curtain of it, and the city outside turns streaky and impressionist. I watch a motorcycle taxi driver pull a poncho over his shoulders, a woman across the street open a bright blue umbrella, and the sky go from purple to grey. There is something honest about a monsoon downpour. It does not apologise. It just arrives, does its work, and leaves the streets smelling of wet concrete and jasmine.
When the rain eases, I decide to walk, not take the skytrain. I cross the street and head towards Sathorn, the financial district, where the MahaNakhon tower sticks up like a pixelated spaceship. I am thinking about the practicalities of staying longer. My visa-exempt entry is 60 days, extendable once for 30 days at immigration for 1,900 baht, which is about fifty-five dollars. The office is at Chaeng Wattana, out past the airport link, and I have been putting off the trip. The landlord at the Ari flat, the one I put a deposit on a few days ago, has already done the TM30 report, the notification that I am staying there, which immigration requires within 24 hours. I have a receipt and everything, but I still need a Certificate of Residence to open a bank account properly, and that means a trip to the same office, with a queue that I am told can eat a whole morning.
A friend of mine, a teacher who has been here four years, said the trick is to go at opening time, bring photocopies of everything, and pack snacks. She also said that the bank situation is not what it used to be. Since 2025, tourist accounts have mostly stopped. You need a long-stay visa, non-B or non-O or similar, to open an account at Bangkok Bank or Kasikorn, and you will need your passport, visa, lease, and a Thai phone number. The minimums run from 500 to 10,000 baht depending on the bank. I have the lease sorted, and my SIM number, so I am halfway there. I am hoping the officer at Chaeng Wattana is in a good mood.
The walk takes me past a street market, a handful of stalls selling som tam, the green papaya salad that costs 40 to 60 baht at a market vendor, and a bowl of boat noodles for 50 to 80 baht. I stop at a stall that has an electric fan and a plastic table, order a som tam and a plate of pad thai, and sit down, watching the rain drip off the awning. The owner, an older woman with a gold tooth and a kind face, asks where I am from and if I like spicy food. I say yes, and she grins. The som tam arrives with a crunch, the papaya shreds sharp with lime and chilli, and the pad thai comes with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of crushed peanuts. The whole meal is about 110 baht, around three dollars, and it is the best food I have had all week, not that there has been a bad meal yet.
Afterwards, I take a tuk-tuk back towards the river, not to the Grand Palace this time, because I am saving the full tour for later, but to Song Wat, the riverside warehouse district. I am told there is a film day market on now, through August 12th, called Song Wat Film Day, with old cameras and vinyl and crafts, and DJ sets along the waterfront. The market is called Old Gate Alley, and it is apparently a free, analogue-culture kind of thing. I get to the alley and it is buzzing, stalls with vintage Polaroids and film rolls, a guy selling cassette tapes in plastic cases, a girl painting a mural on a brick wall. The rain has stopped, and the air is thick but bearable, and the Chao Phraya is there, brown and slow, with a ferry chugging past.
I walk along the river for a bit, past the old godowns with peeling paint and rusted tin roofs, and I think about how Bangkok is not just one city. It is a sprawl of neighbourhoods, each with its own rhythm. Thonglor and Ekkamai are the expat corridors, all cafes and boutique malls. Silom is the financial district that turns into nightlife after dark. Sathorn is the embassy belt, quiet and upscale. Ari, where I am staying, is the hipster pocket, arty and leafy, with a local character that I like. And here on the river, there is a different economy, one of boat engines and warehouses, of men carrying crates of fish and women selling cold drinks from styrofoam boxes.
I duck into a narrow lane and find a small coffee counter, just a hole in the wall with a couple of stools, the kind of place that does not have a name I can read. I order an espresso, 40 baht, and the barista, a young guy with a man bun, asks if I have tried khao soi. I say not yet, and he tells me about a place in his village up north, near Chiang Mai, that does it with a duck egg. I tell him I am heading that way eventually, up the old railway line, and his face lights up. He says, ah, sanuk, which means fun, or more like the little spark of joy you get when something goes well. I take a sip of my espresso and think, yes, that is the word.
The line out of Bangkok, the one I have been planning, goes north through the ancient capitals, Ayutthaya and Sukhothai, then up the historic railway into the green monsoon valleys of the far north. I have not bought a ticket yet, but I have the route in my head, and I am starting to feel ready. The city has been good to me, but I did not come here to stay still. I came here to move, slowly, and to carry this city with me as I go.
Back at the Ari flat, I stand on the balcony and watch the evening come. The storm has passed, and the sky is a bruised pink over the rooftops. The neighbour's cat is lying on a ledge, tail twitching. The street below is quiet, except for the occasional scooter. I think about the BTS pass and the bank account and the visa extension, all the dull machinery that makes a place feel like home, and I realise it is not dull at all. It is the scaffolding. You put it up, and then you can hang your hammock. Tomorrow, I will go to Chaeng Wattana and stand in a queue with my photocopies and my snacks, and I will be one step closer to the road north. But tonight, I am here, in the wet green air, and that is enough.
I turn off the lights, and the city hums outside, a low electric murmur of traffic and rain-soaked streets. In the morning, I will pay about 900 baht for a monthly BTS package, and maybe another 75 for a coffee that tastes like the beginning of something. The road north is waiting. But so is this, the slow art of staying. Sawasdee, Bangkok. I will see you in the morning.
There is a moment, just as the rain stops, when Bangkok goes quiet, the traffic noise dipping, the air holding its breath. And then the geckos start up, that clicking sound, and the city exhales. I close my eyes, and I am already tracing the railway line on the map in my head, but the pillow is soft, and the window is open to the wet green night. That is all for today. Tomorrow, paperwork. The day after, the north. For now, I am home.