Apart from the glittering spires of the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo which houses  the famous and enigmatic Emerald Buddha Bangkok offers a host of other delights for the visitor. We enjoyed sharing these with our friends, Teresa and Michael, when they visited in August. They were in town for an international conference.

From the bustling river, the view of Wat Arun, perhaps the best known sight in Bangkok, was magnificent.  A day spent in the national museum is almost certainly not enough. One of the benefits of a history uninterrupted by conquest and colonialism is that the collection of royal and historical artefacts is intact. The museum offers a wonderful insight into South East Asia in general and Thailand in particular. 

The city is a magnet to backpackers from all over the world and the streets offering low cost food and accommodation, souvenirs and knickknacks throng with the curious, the adventurous and the idiosyncratic. Enjoying a beer in a street café we watched our fellow travellers experience the mysteries of the orient.

For the serious shoppers though, there is the huge weekend market in the north of Bangkok. We browsed through only a fraction of the 4000 stalls and shops laid out in the clean, organised and well planned market area. Everything was available from beautiful wood carving, through exquisite silverware to puppies.  The town’s folk come to the market for competitively priced clothes and household items and perhaps some interesting curio that just catches the eye.

Bangkok is certainly worth a visit and we shall definitely return, again.  

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We liked Bangkok.  It was an interesting mix of the ancient and historical alongside the pulsating energy of an expanding modern city.  On the one hand there is the old city containing the Grand Palace of ‘The King and I’ fame and venerable but immaculate golden pagodas and shrines.  Here there is the breathtaking 45m long reclining golden Buddha, the fascinating emerald Buddha, a 3m high solid gold Buddha and the largest image of a standing Buddha in the world. These sacred images are housed in glittering and ornate pagodas with towering slender spires.

On the other hand the modern city is so crammed with cars and buses that the traffic moves at walking pace and the resultant pollution is often a problem. It is sometimes quicker to use the express boats on the river. Jumping on and off these long fast river buses was great fun. We found a good connection with the Skytrain system which reaches over the buildings in the commercial and retail part of the city.  These fast, clean and very modern, air conditioned carriages offer wonderful views of the towering buildings. Escalators at the stations drop you smoothly down to street level to shop in the modern malls, offices or hotels. All a world away from Cambodia.

Last year just as we were arriving in Cambodia, on 19 September 2006, General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, the Chief of the army overthrew the Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.  Thailand is still under the control of a military regime, with parliamentary democracy suspended. When we visited Bangkok we saw people demonstrating and making speeches against the military control.  Elections were promised for October 2007 so we shall see what happens.

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