A stroll down Khaosan Road at 10PM on Friday night would have anyone thinking that everything in Bangkok is back to normal post-Covid.

And it was. At least after 9 at night.

Street full, bars bouncing, drinks flowing, music pumping, hawkers galore, elephant pants aplenty.

The customers were 50% Thai, and 50% foreigners, most of whom were tourists but not what you’d see on Sukhumvit right now.

The overwhelming majority of visitors were farangs.

Lots of families, young couples, groups of guys and gals in their 20s enjoying all this backpacker paradise has to offer.

But here’s the kicker – there weren’t very many “real” backpackers about.

Everyone was well-dressed (ignore the elephant pants fad), showered, looking good and not skrimping on the abundance of cheap drink deals on offer.

Large bottles of beer ranged from 80b to 150b with 120b the most popular price pick for bars and even then many do buy 3 get 1 free making that 360b for four big bottles.

Who can complain about that? It’s a steal.

Gas and grass are also big business with locals and tourists sucking it up and in until sunrise in some places as there is a different approach from police and authorities in this part of town when it comes to getting things back on track after two years of nothing.

Not everywhere is open all night but plenty of places are on both Khaosan Road itself and round the corner on Soi Rambuttri with the party still going in some at 4AM.

Even at this late hour, the crowd is still a mix of locals and tourists.

When you do realise all is not as it was before Thailand closed down is during the day.

Pre-covid Khaosan was fairly busy in daylight hours with stragglers wandering around and tourists looking lost not knowing what to do or where to go but that right now is missing.

Lots of the shops on surrounding streets are still closed making the place look far from normal – that is, until after dark.

Everything will take time but for now, Khaosan Road is killing it at least at night and long may it continue on the road to recovery.

After a 5-day long weekend work was a killer yesterday and things have been slow around here as there really isn’t much going on right now in Bangkok to talk about.

There are definitely more tourists about but not vast numbers that some silly news outlets would lead you to believe there are. And about half are from India.

Expats just seem to be going through the motions doing what they do week in, week out.

If you have something to share with us that we’re missing out on shoot us an email at stickboybangkok@gmail.com so we can check it out.