I sat at the bar only twenty meters from my hotel, sweating through another night of overpriced drinks and chain-smoking. I was growing tired of sitting back and watching other people have their fun. I came to Thailand, and not to watch.

When the sun finally set, I smiled, caught the waitress’s attention, paid my bill, and stepped out toward the main road.

I worked up the confidence to approach one of the street vendors and purchased counterfeit Viagra and condoms for the night ahead. Still in vacation mode, I didn’t bother haggling and grossly overpaid. He gave me a knowing smile, one I would come to recognize often.

Bound for Nana Plaza, I carried a small sachet of medicated gel. It would make sure at least one of us was having a good time.

Following Google Maps on my phone, I was surprised I didn’t attract more attention. I must have looked incredibly out-of-place. Perhaps my drunkenness masked my anxiety about where I was going. After walking for only a few minutes, I turned the corner and arrived on Soi 4.

Nothing really prepares someone for this.

The sights, the sounds, and the smells are absolutely overwhelming. Food stalls frying scorpions stood beside vendors selling lingerie. Folding tables displayed illicit goods openly. Sex toy and Viagra vendors shouted over those selling e-cigarettes and pre-rolled joints. Each vendor hawked their goods loudly and shamelessly as if they were selling vegetables at the market.

For a moment, I considered turning around.

Literally hundreds of what locals called “freelancers” battled as much for attention as for the space to stand on this tight street. It wasn’t immediately obvious what was under whose skirt, but I could hear their negotiations as I walked by. Choice is certainly not constrained on Soi 4.

Tonight, I sidestepped the commotion, careful not to lock eyes with anyone selling themselves or anything else. I approached the two-story tall gate and entered a queue. Avoiding the adjacent queue for what must have been the busiest ATM in Thailand, I watched as security checked bags at the door.

The mundanity of it could make you forget that, beneath the neon glow, everyone here was technically breaking the law.

My taxi arrived, and I moved on from the birdsongs of the palm plantations and unpaved roads into the city proper. The second of two hotels booked sight-unseen was next, this time in Nana. I had again booked this place for far too long as well, but for completely different reasons.

An hour later, we arrived. The driver of the yellow and green car charged me 500 baht for the privilege. “Welcome to Thailand” he said as I stepped out, a phrase I would soon learn to dread.

The room was clean and modern, but the area it sat in was decidedly not. After putting my bags down, I drew the blinds. An enormous pink neon tube sign glowed across from my hotel. Lolitas. I had done some research into the area before choosing this room but it hadn’t come up.

I got out of the shower and laid there looking out the window. The bright neon glow illuminated the puddles lining the cramped alleyway. A few young women sat under a small awning in chairs facing each other talking while they avoided the rain. From a distance I snapped a quick photo of the sign and sent it along to a friend to share a giggle with, and headed to bed for the day.

I stepped into the unusually chatty elevator and headed downstairs the following morning. The bars across the street served suspiciously similar looking breakfast menus as early as 10AM. Instead I opted for some spring rolls from the sweet old lady pushing her cart along the road.

I decided to do some daytime exploring to get a read on the red-light district before business opened for the day. I walked aimlessly along Sukhumvit for hours. The rain made way for an intense tropical sun that made me sweat so profusely it dripped from my glasses and onto the dirty ground below.

Every type would try pitching me their goods and services. Some more mysterious than others. Two Indian men in their mid-thirties negged me, insisting that my hair was thinning. Almost immediately they tried getting me to follow them to an unknown second location. Declining, I changed directions quickly. Some of the pitches weren’t quite as opaque, though.

As I walked slowly down the street a group of women working at one of the many massage shops piped up. “Hello! Hansum man!” they smiled and waved as I made eye-contact. I took their compliments seriously, nodding back without breaking my stride. My earnest acceptance highlighted my naiveté; they laughed amongst themselves. Small folding tables hastily set up on the sidewalk openly sold electronic cigarettes, counterfeit Viagra, and illicit sex toys.

By mid-afternoon I circled back to the bar across from my hotel. I sat facing the sign that would taunt me for days and ordered overpriced food and a Leo. As I settled in I watched the seven or so women in their mid-thirties take turns between bickering amongst themselves and enticing foreigners to follow them inside. Some did.

I sat there slowly getting drunk in an effort to work up the confidence to be like them, but it wouldn’t come to me on day two.

I spent the first days alone, restless and unmoored, waiting for something to settle.

Things were changing, and debts like this always needed repaying. The brutal 12-hour time difference only amplified my feelings of agitation and unease. I shook and shivered from drug withdrawals. For the first three days in Thailand, I saw the outside only in short bursts to chain-smoke my cheap Thai cigarettes and accept food and cannabis deliveries from lost delivery drivers.

I had arrived.

Where exactly that was, was much harder to tell. Stepping outside and looking around offered few clues. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed I was in Bangkok. A palm tree plantation sat behind my temporary residence. The sounds of the infamous Asian Koel interrupted my racing thoughts, and kept them from straying too close to the familiar.

As it turns out, I was over an hour away from anything, or anyone, that mattered.

Even after staying there for eight full days I don’t think I could locate this homestay on a map. If native Thais, delivery drivers included, with address in hand couldn’t find it, I was well and truly lost. Grab drivers were my only real lifeline in this unfamiliar place. Finding each other became a collaborative effort, made harder by torrential rain and strained English. Perhaps this place, like many of my early mistakes in Thailand, was quietly fortuitous. It was exactly the soft landing that I needed.

I never felt like a tourist in Bangkok. Not in the way I expected to. I had decided before I had even disembarked the plane that I was at home. And the first step in making Bangkok my new reality was to leave these particular addictions behind in this strange bed. I thought carefully about how I had arrived there. It wasn’t as if I could look back on my life in the States as a series of successes. Uncomfortable but undeterred, I blanked the slate.

Showing up to a place and knowing it needed to work out, that was new to me.