This is a wonderful side street that is a plethora of colour and noise, punctuated with sights one would never be exposed to in North America. Several stands on the side of the street have freshly chopped ingredients to make stir fries right before your eyes. There are small carts selling preserved items or tofu on sticks. Motorbikes weave between passersby. Chickens sometimes walk up and down the streets. I had the "pleasure," too, to learn of a "chicken house." That is, a prostitution den, just steps away. The drone of foreign languages, the sticky weather, the sense of displacement, the anonymity...These are the things that give a place character. These are the reasons I travel.