A train ride changed my life. But it wasn't some mystical transcontinental odyssey through jungle and tundra, where the meditative clickety-clack of the carriages induced profound personal revelations. Nor was it a fat-back, first-class wallow with the smart set, all clubby leather, butlers and polished brass.

It was an 80¢ crosstown trip on Bangkok's Skytrain.

That was back in early 2000, when the elevated railway had only been in operation for a month or two. With a soft swoosh the doors closed behind me, and it was as if a whole new city had suddenly materialized. Cool jets of air banished the sweat from my brow, and we were gliding magisterially above Bangkok and its fume-choked carnival of chaos.

			S O U T H E A S T A S I A Photographs by PATRICK ZACHMANN

I had visited the city on many prior occasions, of course, generally as briefly as possible, on the way to the mountains or the beach. I had bought completely into the view of Bangkok as the ultimate automotive apocalypse, a honking, revving dystopia where half your life could be spent cooped up in your car, going nowhere fast. A man who invented a thing called the Comfort 100, which enabled efficient in-car urination, made a mint. All around was the ceaseless, chattering whine of tuk tuks and the earsplitting eructations of motorcycles tweaked to within an inch of racing class by speed freaks. It seemed like a city from J.G. Ballard's most fevered dreams, somewhere to get in and out fast.

The Skytrain opened up a world of possibilities and revealed a city of hidden beauty. Things you would rarely glimpse from the roads: the golden swoop of a temple roof, pockets of lushest green, elegantly crumbling teakwood homes. For the first time in years, you could make an appointment and know you could keep it. You could plan an evening out, and spend it in bars and restaurants instead of gnawing a taxi seat belt in frustration and working on your ulcer.

One ride, and I was hooked. A year later, I was living here.

Bangkok denizens have been slower to fall in love with the Skytrain. Many thought it too expensive, a gimmick, or they just couldn't be bothered climbing all those stairs.

For the first year of its operation, they stuck to the buses and their beloved cars. Fewer than 150,000 passengers were ascending to the Skytrain a day—well under the 600,000 envisaged and required by its operator, the privately owned Bangkok Mass Transit System Corp., to break even.

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After relentless advertising campaigns, discount tickets and escalators increasingly replacing stairs that would leave Chris Bonnington breathless, almost 300,000 people now hop aboard each day. At rush hours, the crush can rival Hong Kong's MTR or Singapore's MRT, and a clamor has begun to add extra carriages to the present three-car configuration.

A trip along its two lines-dubbed Silom and Sukhumvit for the main roads they shadow, towering anything from 10 to 20 meters above street level—is a fascinating opportunity for social studies. At Mo Chit terminus, chuckle at the florid tourists struggling with their purchases from the Chatuchak weekend market. At Siam Square, where the lines intersect, raise an eyebrow at the trendy young things aping the latest Japanese fashion fad. And at Nana and Asok, try not to stare as dozens of scantily clad ladies and ladyboys of the night decamp for the fleshpots of Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy.

The Skytrain, in its present form, cost about $1.3 billion. Construction has begun to extend it by almost 20 kilometers, and a master plan, as yet unapproved by the government, proposes to pour in another $620 million or so to build 13 new stations and further expand the lines.

Despite its failure to meet projected passenger loads, the Skytrain remains a raging success story compared with Bangkok's other elevated rail project, launched amid great fanfare at the height of Thailand's boom years by Gordon Wu's Hopewell Holdings. As the Thai government dithers, all that remains of Wu's dream is a concatenation of monoliths beside the expressway to Don Muang Airport. As concrete cancer sets in, they stand, weird and forlorn, like an urban Stonehenge.

A subway scheme has fared a bit better: after countless delays, the first half of Bangkok Metro's 20-kilometer operation is scheduled to open in two years. Construction has been hampered by the shifting, marshy ooze on which the erstwhile Venice of the East perches. The Metro will link up with the Skytrain, putting quick and painless commuting within reach of many of the city's inhabitants. Personally, I plan to keep my head above ground. After all, why creep beneath the city like a mole when you can soar above it like an eagle?

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