It’s early morning at Bangkok airport, and a planeload of jet-lagged backpackers make their way to the taxi rank. “You want Khao San Road,” a cabby asks the first group. It’s where nearly all backpackers in Bangkok head for.

Situated in the Banglamphu district of Bangkok, Khao San Road is famous for its inexpensive hawker food, cheap accommodation, fake Rolex watches and cassette tapes for 40 baht (RM3.70) each.

It’s a world within a world. A roving travellers’ mecca where anything goes – and where anything can be bought, sold or scammed.

Khao San’s main draw card is that it offers a one-stop shop. Within metres of any guest house you can board a bus to Koh Samui or book a flight to Kathmandu, update your student status with a new international student card, check your e-mail at the cyber cafe or settle down to a green Thai curry while having your fortune read.

I arrive just after dawn. It’s the only time of day when Khao San looks much like any other Bangkok street. I head for Prakorbs, one of the street’s few remaining original teak guesthouses. There’s great food and a rear courtyard offers a peaceful respite from the perpetual beat of the street.

Prakorbs also provides the ideal vantage point for self-proclaimed “sidewalk scientists”. Armed with an espresso and the early edition Bangkok Post, I settle down to watch the metamorphosis of a sleepy street into one of the Asia’s most colourful global melting pots.

Its 6.30am and a procession of saffron-robed monks slowly shuffle by as a street sweeper swishes yesterday’s litter into a rattan bin. A few early morning tuk-tuks (three-wheeled motorcycle taxis) motor past, their eager drivers looking for new customers.

Further down the road, the last of the previous night’s revellers step from the shadows, homeward bound. An airport mini-bus disgorges a dozen new arrivals who struggle to shoulder their mountainous backpacks before confronting the bewildering neon-lit facades of hundreds of guesthouses.

By 9am, the sidewalks are claimed by the street merchants.

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