One Night In Bangkok

I was in Bangkok on Wednesday of this past week.  Well, I flew in Tuesday evening, was a ATECH for a shop visit all day Wednesday and then I flew back to Singapore Wednesday evening.
It was all pretty much the same as the other 6 or 8 times I have gone to Bangkok in the past couple of months. However, this time when P (the driver from the vendor) picked me up to drive me to the hotel we took a slightly different route as traffic was pretty bad. We left the airport and for the first 45 minutes or so the trip was the same as usual along the freeway.  About 45 minutes into the 1 hour trip, the traffic got pretty thick, so P took an exit and we started to drive through the city on surface streets (and I will have to have a whole separate blog about the city of Bangkok itself).
At one point we turned down a side street or alley and I noticed what, at first, looked like a couple of grandparents and another older couple (though younger than the "grandparents") sitting at a table on the side of the road next to an abandoned building. I also noticed a couple of young ladies in very short shorts and low cut tops. Then I noticed a few more standing next to some run down (or abandoned) cars. I then realized that the whole alley was a hooker alley.
P, the driver, commented that they were all prostitutes. I said "Yes, I figured that. Are they all women or are some of them guys?"
He looked at me in the rear view mirror and asked "You are familiar with this?" in a sort of disbelieving tone. I explained that I had lived in New York City and that I now live in Los Angeles and that I had seen amny prostitutes and many transvestite or transsexual ones. He looked at me, again in the rear view mirror, and asked "You have prostitutes in America?" I explained that all of the major cities, and many smaller towns, had them. And that indeed most major cities and many small towns in every country in the world have them.
At this point we had pulled up to a very long stop light and while we were waiting for it to change he turned around and asked me: "Do you have beggars too?" and cupped his hands in the sort of universal motion of begging for money or food. I explained that, yes we do indeed have beggars in America, and many of them in the larger cities.
He made the comment "But you live in a civilized country?!?" as if asking a question and making a statement at the same time. He then shook his head and said, almost under his breath and sort of chuckling in dis-belief at the same time, "Beggars in America!". It was almost like the subtext of that thought or the continuation of it was "Hmmmmm, who knew?"
I think that I may have caused him to seriously re-think his ideas of our country or maybe even his world view.