It’s hard to find a more pro-Bangkok apologist than I. Many people love Bangkok, but few have lived here for as long as I have and not grown bored. If you’ve read this site before or listened to my podcast, you’ll know that I still find it endlessly fascinating. When I first came here I arrived with my friend Mark, both of us ready for 4 months of adventure – but after 12 days he’d had enough.

I don’t write that to poke fun at Mark, but it is a perfect example of how Bangkok just is not for everyone. And I get it – it’s noisy and dusty and confusing and maddening and clogged with traffic, and large swaths of it are not very pretty. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but  it’s also a vibrant, exciting, diverse, place full of interesting things to do, places to see, and people to meet.

Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives, and I have no plans to leave for somewhere else. I look forward to raising my son here, in a place that’s miles more culturally diverse, interesting and amenable to adventures, shenanigans and travel than where I grew up.

But I have to say – especially considering my role as a father – in recent years my “Bangkok 4-eva” mindset has started to erode. The sheen is coming off, and it’s due to one thing – air pollution.

A friend took this a few years ago from the 50th floor. Not great.

As I said, I can forgive a lot about the city, and if it was just me living la vida loca as a bachelor, I’d probably write it off as, well, I’m old and it’s too late to go making big changes now. I’d probably do what most Bangkokians do and learn to live with it, turning on my air filter and wearing a mask when I go outside. But man…it just seems to get worse every year. Every year we have 2 months where the air we breathe is literally poison. Every year the politicians offer lame excuses and talk about taking measures to improve it. Every year nothing changes.

And it’s now to the point where every year, I’ve started to ask myself – is this really what I want my family to deal with for the next…ever?

Now, I’m not rich. I don’t bring a ton of money or prestige to the country, and I don’t know any famous people. I’m just a face in the crowd, doing the best I can day by day. There are crowds of people every year who leave Bangkok for one reason or another, and if I ever join them, I doubt anyone would care or notice (well, hopefully a few people would care and notice, but you get my point).

But the fact that a huge Bangkok nerd like me wavers sometimes…well, I’m not saying people should notice, but I am saying if Bangkok’s crappy air and seeming lack of political willpower to do something about it is giving me second thoughts, then it can give anyone second thoughts.

So during the Poison Air season when I open the air quality app on my phone and look at my home in Canada compared to my home in Thailand…

Sure, the temperature sucks, but you can put a jacket on and still be fresh and fancy free.

…it’s hard not to SIGH and wonder if I really have to put up with this every year, and how many times I can tell my son we can’t go on a bike ride today because the air is poison before HE starts to ask me why the hell we still live here.

Get yo’ shit together Thailand. Another five years of this and embassies will start issuing travel warnings for Bangkok. I understand that no place is perfect and there are certainly worse places. But there are lots of other countries with nice people, beautiful beaches and good food – and clean air.