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I boost myself onto a stool along the oval of the Sukhothai Hotel's classic Zuk Bar, out of breath, a few frustrating minutes past the end of happy hour. In front of me sits a stack of blue matchbox-sized packets called "Wakies" that my Thai drinking companion has brought along for the evening.

Condoms, I guess. Can't a Western man come to Bangkok without everyone assuming he's a sex tourist?

But no, they prevent hangovers, says D, a Bangkok law professor. "They're organic. You can buy them at 7-Eleven."

I've placed my tomorrow morning in D's hands because I'm determined to uncover some of Bangkok's best drinking palaces. The plan is to hit places where people go strictly for the cocktails, bars where the main buzz is the one in your head.

Bangkok has a canon of travel literature on the other stuff: the temples and temptations. There's no need for another referral to pole-dancing bars frequented by men who can't get a date. There will be no obligatory stop to commune with Graham Greene's ghost at the Bamboo Bar of the Oriental Hotel.

No need to be alarmed by political unrest — the recent coup was about as serene a military takeover as you get. And Thailand has a robust drinking culture, to the dismay of the moral guardians now trying to give the country's bad-boy image a scrubbing.

Bangkok is a place where whiskey is served by the bottle.

I swallow a Wakie.

I've recruited D and Noy, a Thai American journalist, to be my guides. Like most Thais, they have shortened their names to something more manageable for Westerners to pronounce. I later learn they privately call me "It," a name Thais sometimes use to refer to foreigners. They mean "It" with affection.

My original plan called for a solo drink at the Dome, a restaurant-and-bar complex atop the 67-story State Tower in the Bangrak district.

Never got there. Two of the Dome's three elevators were out of commission, and the mob for the only working elevator just kept getting bigger.

I had only an hour until I was supposed to be at the Sukhothai across town, where D and Noy had suggested sampling the $25 all-the-wine-you-can-drink happy hour, so I jumped in a taxi.

It hurtled into traffic on the expressway ramp and came to a dead stop.

After 10 minutes, the only things moving were motorbikes, weaving around the stationary cars like salmon avoiding rocks while swimming upstream. A Sky Train whooshed past on the rails overhead. I was sure I felt the breeze of its air-conditioning.

Cutting my losses, I paid the driver and walked to the nearest Sky Train station. For 40 cents, I was in the heart of downtown in eight minutes. But that first drink remained elusive.