Along with the gleaming shopping malls and towering skyscrapers, there is another Bangkok, an underbelly most Westerners will never encounter.
In slums buried deep down hidden sois, large immigrant families live in tin-roofed shacks with no proper sanitation or power.
It's a world away from the typical Western expat experience, but one into which American Dwight Turner has dived head first.
A former English teacher, Turner began rescuing his first family five years ago, and went on to found In Search of Sanuk, a shoestring project providing vital help to traumatised immigrants in the city.
The project currently houses seven families but helps dozens more with food, clothing, education, legal advice and emotional support, relying on funding from individual donors and small grants.
Some donors sponsor families direct, whereas other donations help Turner purchase basic essentials for those who may have just arrived in Thailand with nothing. The project managed to raise about US$34,000 (1.2 million baht) last year.
Turner, 30, has never forgotten that day five years ago, when he first stepped foot in the Din Daeng slum, which inspired his subsequent work.
"It was way down a soi, probably only 20m² in all," he said.
"What I saw was squalor. It was a shock. Fourteen family members, including the grandmother, were living in that tiny space. The kids all looked sick. They could not get any medical help. They had no proper food, just living off cooking oil and rice. They were at the mercy of others and it was made worse with their father not being around. They were effectively orphaned by the Thai government, as he had been detained for being an illegal immigrant.
"The kids were traumatised. It took them a year to trust me."
Turner originally began helping these families following a chance meeting with a Chinese immigrant at his church, which led him to the slum.
"I met this Chinese kid, 'Ryan', and it was at the time I was looking at doing some kind of volunteering in the city," he said. "He was helping some refugees and wanted me to get involved.
"One day he pulled me aside and said: 'I have not been completely honest with you: I'm an illegal immigrant too.'"
Some months later Turner's friend, now resettled in America and studying at university, was arrested for being in the country illegally and locked up in the immigration centre.
"It was there that I met his cellmate, a Vietnamese man, who told me his story and asked me to help his family," he said. "It went from there."
Turner vowed to find the family adequate housing, and after a few setbacks settled them into a safe and clean apartment.
That was nearly two years ago. The family is still awaiting refugee status, the father detained five years on. Turner encountered other families in a similar predicament, many with their fathers locked away.
He became heavily involved with these families, many of whom are Hmong, a persecuted hilltribe from Vietnam.
Turner has gone onto help immigrant families from Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and other countries. The project has enjoyed notable successes, including two Congolese families moving as refugees to Canada, and two Vietnamese families soon to move to New Zealand.
"It's the ideal dream, for them to get refugee status and start a new life somewhere," Turner said.
"But the reality is it can take years for them to get there, and while they are in Thailand, they literally have no rights and are so easily exploited."
Many of the men in these families remain indefinitely detained, locked up dozens to a small cell for working illegally while trying to earn a meagre living.
Those left behind on the streets have no rights. Thailand has notoriously never signed up to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Families are often penniless having spent all their money in getting to the country.
But Thailand remains a magnet for those fleeing persecution, due to its location in Southeast Asia next to poor neighbouring countries. Its 30-day tourist visa is seen as a way into the country as "transit" to somewhere else.
Much of Turner's work is involved with children, who are often traumatised by not only persecution in their home country, but also their lives in Bangkok.
In Search of Sanuk runs cooking classes on weekends in the "Courageous Kitchen", which happens to be in Turner's own house, and volunteers teach children English.
They also fight to make sure children go to school, as Thailand is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
"We are very proud that many of the children we support, especially those kids we have worked with a long time, are getting an education," he said. "They speak Thai and do mix into the schools very well."
Turner, who has a Thai fiancée and speaks the language fluently, said he is committed to the project for the long haul, but admits he has made sacrifices to carry on his work.
"My parents are getting older in America, and I may have to go back and help them sometime," said Turner, a native of Atlanta, Georgia.
"But what I do here is rewarding. Bangkok can be such a tourist trap and it is hard to find something fulfilling to do with your time.
"One thing I do know is I will always help these families. I'm committed for the long-term. The churches, NGOs and charities here are overrun and can only do so much.
"Fundraising can be exhausting, but it's worth it to know we've helped these children and their families to have a better life."
Visit insearchofsanuk.com
