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Barely
an hour in Bangkok and there I was, nose-to-trunk with
an unplanned elephant. In
the steaming heart of the Thai metropolis, at 11 o'clock
at night, on Rajaprarop Road. To me, it was a
sign. It said I was somewhere extraordinary - a sleek and
modern city where megafauna roam the streets after
dark. One should be mentally prepared for that sort of
thing. The peculiar sight of a nocturnal pachyderm set
against the neon-lit streets is a perfect symbol for the
city. Bangkok screams with contradictions: the old and the
new, the sordid and the sublime, the beauty and the bedlam.
The overall effect is refreshingly chaotic.
There is no nanny state here to blunt life's pungent edges and put
rubber stoppers on
all the pointy bits. I defy anyone
with a discernible pulse to be bored in Bangkok. I did not see
any other elephants that night. But I know
they're still there, on the side streets, waiting
for unsuspecting tourists. 
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Bangkok: nightlife meets
wildlife
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