Bangkok is a city of extremes. One day you’re hospitalized with an acute respiratory tract infection; 48-hours later you’re on top of the world.

Literally. Sipping Brut because Vertigo’s Moët et Chandon is slightly outside your 20-baht-fashion price point and taking in the Moon Bar’s lightning rod’s-eye views.

All this hat-trick requires is one melodramatic F’book status update and a friend who is gorgeous enough to hop the next available flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. During the Civil War the Army of the James had Clara Barton. I have Pedro. There are friends and then there are friends. Nobody dies on Pedro’s watch, and the sickbed service includes California Brut.

Sexy Maitre d’: Brown Herringbone dress tailored by the talented Pin-Pin of Hoi An, Vietnam

Wide belt: COLOR, Phnom Penh’s first and only vintage clothing store

What can I say? I followed the Thai doctor’s orders. She gave me a bag of drugs and wrote two recommendations on my Rx: “change environment” and “fresh air.” I wish this blog could convey the sound of me laughing my ass off.

Breathe the fresh air in Bangkok — doctor’s orders! And while you’re at it, enjoy a kosher cheeseburger! With so many impossibilities at my fingertips to restore me to hale and hearty, I barely knew where to begin.

Like Smilla’s varieties of snow, Bangkok is a smorgasbord of air: putrid air, steam bath air, pungent-garbage-underfoot air, heavy-particulate-matter air, Freoned-within-an-inch-of-your-life air, hooker-just-blew-menthol-in-my-face air, but fresh air?

For such an ethereal commodity there’s only one thing to do. Scale Mount Meru or climb the sixty-odd floors to the Banyan Tree’s rooftop. Both are mythical places, but only one serves the bubbly.

And while you’re up there, definitely check out the eye candy.

Braided gold earrings & bracelet: mosstories, Terminal 21, Bangkok

Faux pearl friendship ring: Ciga Shop, Terminal 21, Bangkok

 Lil’ Black Dress: COLOR, Phnom Penh’s new vintage store — check ’em out!

There’s nothing like a 2:00 A.M. bathroom photo shoot to bring out the minx in me. Take an Asian hemline and press it to my mantis gams and subtly slutty is what you get.

 Jingle-jangle earrings: Lumphini MRT street stall, Bangkok (for 20 baht, a.k.a. 65 cents)

Leather clutch: In Retrospect, Boise

Faux pearl friendship ring: Ciga Shop, Terminal 21, Bangkok

Yeah, I’m finally writing about the clothes.

The best thing about taking the high road to recovery? At the end of the evening, the concierge at the Banyan Tree gave me — a Brut-swilling non-guest — a free bottle of fancy hotel water. “Water from my heart,” he said.

I HEART THAILAND

I HEART VANESSA BOOTS, A.K.A. PEDRO — thanks again for the epic pics and the eleventh hour rescue!