Hi! We’re the Traveladdicts and we’d like to tell you about all the sights that we saw during our two week city break to Bangkok in Thailand that we went on back in December, 1996.

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Anyway, enjoy your virtual trip to Bangkok and don’t forget to tell us what you thought about it by sending us an email when you’ve finished. We’d be delighted to hear from you and (if you don’t mind) we’d love to add your comments to our Readers’ Comments page (we promise not to include your full name or email address). We welcome any suggestions or even criticisms that you might have and in return we’ll let you know when we add other trip reports.

Bangkok really doesn’t deserve the reputation it has acquired from its hard line on drug traffickers. Around 6 million people visit Bangkok each year and there are far more films and TV dramas made about the plight of innocent people facing the death penalty than actually occur in real life. Our arrival and departure from Bangkok actually entailed less scrutiny than occurs in Heathrow - and that isn’t enough!

Thailand means “Land of the Free”. It changed its name from Siam in 1939 to reflect the fact that the country had never been ruled by a foreign power. This was asking for trouble as, 2 years later, it was occupied by Japan! Bangkok is the capital of Thailand and by far its largest city, being home to about 1/6th of the 60,000,000 Thai population (and still growing).

The name Bangkok is not actually used by the Thais. They call the city “Krung Thep” which means “City of Angels”. Actually its full name is officially: “Krung Thep Mahanakom Amorn Rattanakosin Mahintara Mahadirok Popnoparat Ratchathani Burirom Udommahasthan Amompiman Awathansathit” which apparently means: “The land of angels, the great city (of) immortality, various of devine gems, the great angelic land unconquerable, land of nine noble gems, the royal city, the pleasant capital, place of the grand royal palace, forever land of angels and reincarnated spirits, predestined and created by the highest Deva(s)”. This claims to be the longest town name in the world but this sounds more like a publicity stunt to us (but then so are most of these artificially long town names - click here to find out about other long town names and their meanings ).

We have previously spent 3 full weeks in each of Hong Kong and Singapore and so we were worried that just 2 weeks in Bangkok wouldn’t be enough. However, this turned out to be more than enough time for us and we even ended up, uncharacteristically, lounging around by the hotel pool a couple of times. There were plenty of sights to see and places to wander around but the shopping, which usually takes up quite a lot of our time in places like this, just wasn’t as good as the other two shopping Meccas.

The main attractions in Bangkok are the many temples, monasteries and palaces. Here are just a few that we went to:

• Wat Traimit or The Temple of the Golden Buddha: This contains a 5½ ton solid gold Buddha (see below for a picture). This was actually found in the river covered in a layer of concrete. Its true composition remained hidden for years until it was accidentally dropped when it was being moved and the concrete cracked open to reveal the golden Buddha beneath. Now if that sounds amazing consider that this priceless relic is not protected from theft in any way other than its sheer size and weight. It was surprising how big it actually was. Knowing how heavy gold is, we were expecting it to be quite small but it was 11 foot high.

• Wat Po or The Temple of the Reclining Buddha: This is the oldest and largest monastery in Bangkok and contains a huge reclining statue of Buddha covered in gold leaf. It is quite hard to see and even harder to photograph, as the temple it is in is only slightly larger than the statue and it is surrounded by pillars supporting the roof. Wat Po is also home to the famous Thai massage school. This is certainly not the sort of massage you might expect to get in Patpong and looks excruciating. We saw some of the masseurs in action: standing on people and bending their limbs in painful directions - although it came highly recommended we didn’t try it out!

© Grand Palace Guide book An aerial view of Temple of the Emerald Buddha inside the grounds of The Grand Palace

• Wat Phra Kaeo or The Temple of the Emerald Buddha: This is inside the grounds of the King’s Grand Palace and is easily the most spectacular temple in Bangkok and maybe even in the whole world. There are just so many ornate stupas and buildings inside the temple grounds and all of them are in immaculate condition. We have seen many places of worship around the world both before and after our visit to Bangkok but none of them made such an impression on us as Bangkok’s Temple of the Emerald Buddha did. It is deservedly one of the most popular tourist attractions in Bangkok and there are many organised excursions that you can take to it. These excursions are relatively expensive and, as we like to explore places at our own pace, we decided to make our own way to the Grand Palace in a taxi. Entrance to the Grand Palace actually included a guided tour (in English) which not only went around the spectacular Temple of the Emerald Buddha but also covered some parts of the palace - which was surprising as the King still lives there. We also had plenty of time to wander around the temple by ourselves in order to take plenty of pictures.

No report on Bangkok would be complete without mentioning Patpong. This is the infamous Red Light district of Bangkok and, thanks to countless TV documentaries on sex tourism, this is what most people think Bangkok is all about. Now, it’s quite probable that some of Thailand’s 6 million annual visitors come to Bangkok specifically to visit Patpong and many of the others (like us) will visit this infamous area out of curiosity. However, it is a very, very small part of a very large city and most people visiting Bangkok will come away with the overall impression of a bustling, rapidly growing city packed with fabulous Buddhist temples and overrun by monks rather than one filled with streets of go-go bars and crawling with lady boys and prostitutes.

We were, of course, obliged to visit this den of iniquity in order to provide you with a complete report of the city. It is also the location of Bangkok’s lively night market which was our official justification for straying into the area. It is centred around a relatively short road (with a predictable overflow into some of its side streets) and it really is surprisingly small. The main road is lined either side with suggestively named clubs and bars lit up by tacky neon lights which are spaced out by ordinary shops. Many of these go-go bars are deliberately quite open to the street with touts stood by the door waiting to grab anyone that dares to peep inside. Even if you don’t look, they often still approach you to show you a card warning you of the depraved sights you might witness if you were to enter. This is obviously meant to look officially like a deterrent but it really is a thinly disguised advert for the bar. A sneaky sideways glance inside these bars revealed Thai girls dressed in skimpy bikinis dancing on the bars or occasionally sat on someone’s knee - we didn’t dare take a photograph so you’ll just have to use your imagination here and instead enjoy these pictures from the Grand Palace.

In the evenings this road is closed to traffic so that it can host Bangkok’s night market which runs down the middle of the road and is obviously aimed specifically at tourists. The tightly packed stalls sell T-shirts, souvenirs, and an assortment of illegally copied items like Rolex watches, Gucci hand bags, designer label clothes and pirate videos all of which are openly displayed (in stark contrast to the covert way these same items were peddled in Hong Kong). Nothing on this market is priced and so you always have to ask. Invariably the first price you are quoted is right over the top (and probably adjusted according to how wealthy you look!) but you are expected to haggle this down to about half. However, this market in general was very expensive compared to the other markets in Bangkok and so we weren’t tempted to buy anything from it. The road was predictably packed with tourists and so it took a long time to shuffle our way to the end of it. Like the go-go bar touts, the market stall holders were also very pushy if they caught you looking at their wares and so we ended up looking straight ahead most of the time averting our eyes from both the stalls and the bars.

Bangkok’s traffic is famous and said to be the worst in the world. We’d read about it in the guide books and we’d even spoken to a colleague who works in Bangkok who could talk about nothing else. So when we arrived at the airport, at the start of the Monday morning rush hour, we were expecting the 14 mile journey to our hotel to be an early introduction to this congestion (a 1 to 2 hour transfer according to our guide book!). We were, however, whisked there in around 20 minutes, virtually non-stop until we hit the city streets and, even then, we only stopped for traffic lights! Try getting into central London from Heathrow (a similar distance) at any time of day in 20 minutes.

Actually, throughout our stay, the traffic was only really bad on a couple of occasions. There was always a lot of it but it was generally moving quite fast. Their main roads are mostly wide dual carriageways and there are a lot of elevated expressways (with more being built all of the time). In our experience, the main cause for hold-ups was the traffic lights at each junction. These allowed only one stream of traffic to pass at any time (and then for quite a while) and so you could have to wait quite a while for your turn. Almost half of Bangkok’s vehicles are motorbikes and these would always worm their way to the front of any queue. When the lights finally changed it would sound like the start of a Grand Prix race with the bikes disappearing off into a cloud of blue smoke.

Pollution: On the subject of traffic fumes, this is another aspect of Bangkok that isn’t quite as bad as it’s reputed to be. The traffic police all breath through masks and motorbike and tuk-tuk drivers often wear them too but it really wasn’t that bad - except for some vehicles that is. It appeared like 99% of Bangkok’s traffic pollution was generated by 1% of the vehicles. These could really make you gag for breath when they passed.

Bangkok is a large city with its tourist attractions quite spaced out and so we used its public transport quite a lot. The buses were incredibly cheap (even the slightly more expensive air-conditioned ones) and they ran everywhere - though they were often quite full. The fare was fixed at 7 Bhat (or 10 Bhat for an air-conditioned bus) whatever the distance which made paying for the journey much easier for us. We had a bus route map, and the stops had bus numbers on them, but these were often out of date so planning a journey was a bit hit and miss and required following the bus’s progress on the map.

At some stops, for no obvious reason, the buses would actually stop about 20 yards further down from the bus stop. If we were waiting at the stop, rather than at this arbitrary (and unmarked) place further down the road, then the bus wouldn’t stop for us! Also, whenever a bus did actually stop for us, it would often start up before we had actually got on, leaving us standing in the road. Having said all that, we got quite adept at using the buses by the end of our stay. They are currently (Dec ’96) building an elevated railway to be completed sometime in 1997 which will make getting about even easier. (Update: this elevated railway is now finished and apparently quick and cheap to use.)

In the old days, people used to get around Bangkok by river and canal boats. Today, the canals (or klongs as they are called in Thai) are slowly disappearing in the city but the Chao Phraya River still remains an important and busy artery for getting around. We often used the cheap river buses to get into the heart of the city. The first time we used it, we wanted to go 2 stops up the river and, since it was our first time, we were busy looking around at the other boats and the river side sights rather than where the boat was taking us. When we got off at the 2nd stop we were actually miles past our destination (these boats are fast!). We later found out that they only stop on request! The river is also alive with smaller river taxis. These really shoot along churning up the river. We were taken on one of these during a tour of the klongs but couldn’t really photograph anything because of the water spraying up the side.

Bangkok’s roads are crawling with their famous tuk-tuks and taxis canvassing for business. The taxis were supposed to be more expensive than the tuk-tuks but they were air-conditioned and also had meters so, initially we used these to get a feel for how expensive they were - and they were cheap! We went on some fairly long journeys in them and never paid more than £2. The drivers invariably knew very little English (although, to be fair, they were much better than we were at Thai!) and so telling them where to go was a problem. The trick was to have your destination written in the Thai script. Luckily, we had a tourist map which conveniently had a list of all of the major attractions written in both Thai and English specifically for showing to taxi and tuk-tuk drivers.

We tried to use the tuk-tuks for some short journeys expecting them to be really cheap but, despite our efforts to barter with them, they always wanted a ridiculous amount to just go down the road - much more than an air-conditioned taxi would have charged. I’m sure this was because we were tourists. We eventually found one who took us about a mile up the road for 40p.

The Thai’s are passionately devoted to their King and his Royal Family. Although their King is no longer an absolute monarch, many of the rules from the days of “The King & I”, are theoretically still applicable. For example: it is a crime to deface a picture of the King. You might think that this couldn’t possibly affect you until you realise that it includes the picture of the King on all of the bank notes! The rule about not being higher than the King’s head is also still in force but these days it is more an act of politeness to lower your head when in the presence of the King. Similarly, there is still a law forbidding any building in the Krung Thep area from being higher than the Grand Palace in order to prevent anyone from unconsciously being higher than the King.

Being a Buddhist country, Christmas is not celebrated in Thailand, but there were decorations everywhere while we were there in December. These were actually for the Kings 69th birthday which had been celebrated 2 weeks before we arrived. This happens every year but the celebrations were even bigger when we were there (in 1996) due to it being the King’s 50th year on the throne - he is the longest reigning monarch in the world (and in Thai history).

Their love of the Royal Family isn’t restricted to the present one either - we regularly saw pictures on walls of past Kings and in particular Rama V - otherwise known as King Chulalongkorn The Great. You may recognise his name as he is non other than the eldest son of the King Mongkut (Rama IV) who was portrayed in the musical “The King & I”. It was quite surprising to find out that this musical was based on real people with some similarities to actual events (although the Thais understandably don’t like the way it seems to make fun of them). King Chulalongkorn was the country’s greatest reformer, abolishing many of the country’s primitive traditions as well as slavery and he is the only Siamese or Thai King referred to by his real name. The rest are simply referred to as Rama I to IX. The current King Rama IX (King Bhumibol Adulyadej), may not quite match his predecessor’s significant achievements but he too was awarded the title “the great” by the Thai people in a referendum for his 60th birthday.

We read that you can find food from all corners of the world in Bangkok but, unless it is McDonald’s, Pizza Hut or Kentucky Fried Chicken, we think that you would have to look quite hard to find any other Western food. However, just about all forms of Asian cuisine are available here. In particular: Thai, Chinese and Japanese restaurants are very common with some restaurants serving all three types from the same menu! Our meals were split fairly evenly between these three types and were all pretty cheap, especially the local based fast food restaurants where you could get a generous Thai or Japanese meal, including a soft drink, for around £1.50.

The thing that we just couldn’t get right with the food in Bangkok was how much to order. Sometimes we would get dishes with small portions leaving us hungry (and ready for a big dessert) and other times they would be so generous that we couldn’t finish the meal. The waiters weren’t much help either: if we asked whether we had ordered too much or too little they usually just smiled at us.

The Thai food we had was quite spicy (especially one salad which we couldn’t finish because it was so hot!) and it was often heavily flavoured with lemon grass - especially the Tom Yam soup. We particularly enjoyed their stir-fried noodle dishes although they could have done with a little less chilli! We were expecting coconut to play a major rôle in the Thai dishes but it didn’t seem to. It did, however, feature heavily in my liquid consumption - I almost overdosed on drinking the milk from young coconuts. These look quite different to the ones you win at a coconut shy in England - they are large and green and contain a lot more milk which is much sweeter and tastes exquisite when chilled. The coconut flesh inside, at this age, is a very thin white layer and quite slimy - which makes it an acquired taste. In restaurants, they often served the coconut milk chilled in a glass with the shredded coconut flesh suspended in the liquid but, elsewhere, the most common way to serve it was straight from the shell with the top hacked off, accompanied by a straw to drink the cool, sweet, refreshing coconut milk and a metal spoon to scoop out the thin layer of young coconut flesh! I had up to 3 of these a day!

Like Hong Kong, Bangkok’s streets are littered with food stalls serving quick and cheap snacks to passers-by. Most of the time, we could only guess at what they were cooking as it was usually deep fried in batter. We had been advised (by the Kuoni rep) not to eat from these stalls to avoid tummy upsets but I just couldn’t resist trying the only recognisable morsel: barbecued baby squids which looked really tasty (but were actually a bit of a let down). I suffered no ill-effects from this (or any other meal).

The Japanese food was particularly cheap and, as always, of a very high standard. We had steak a few times, as part of our main course, and this was always exquisitely tender (probably due to its marinade). In one restaurant, while we were waiting for our main courses to arrive, we ate sushi which we picked from little boats that sailed past our table. In another one, we caught occasional glimpses into private rooms enclosed by traditional Japanese screens. These contained low tables surrounded by cushions with the food served by waitresses dressed up as geishas (we had the cheap seats in front of the chefs!) One of the reasons we particularly like to eat Japanese food when we are in the Far East is that they invariably have life-sized and very realistic looking models of their dishes displayed in their windows (backed up by photographic menus) which makes choosing strange sounding delicacies a lot easier.

Neither of us are in any way religious but Buddhism is such an important part of everyday life in Bangkok and Thailand that we thought it was worth including a section on it in our travelogue. Buddhism is by far the most popular religion in Thailand - being practised by about 95% of the population. It is therefore not surprising that their calendar counts from Buddha and not from Christ, with their years being quoted BE or Buddhist Era (1996 AD = 2539 BE) counting the years from the death of Buddha rather than his birth.

© Apa Publications (HK) Ltd. The 5½ ton solid gold Buddha in Wat Traimit

We had read quite a lot about Buddhism as part of the background reading for our trip. It was particularly interesting because Lord Buddha was originally Siddhartha Gautama - a Hindu Prince who renounced his faith when he couldn’t come to terms with the existence of a God and all the suffering going on in the world. He went for a seven year walkabout - suspiciously on the same day his wife bore their only child (apparently without even seeing it!). After wandering around and meditating for seven years he achieved a state of enlightenment (the word “Buddha” means “The Enlightened One”) where he finally understood the purpose of suffering and how to overcome it. In this enlightened state, he was able to remember all of his past lives (incarnations), he could see into the future and knew he would finally achieve the Hindu (and now the Buddhist) goal of entering Nirvana when he died. He spent the rest of his life preaching about this and gathered a following of literally thousands of disciples all of whom also apparently attained enlightenment (with considerably less effort than Buddha had made).

© Apa Publications (HK) Ltd. Buddhist monks in their customary saffron robes

Buddhism was thus born, but perhaps not surprisingly, it bears a certain resemblance to Hinduism. Both religions are both based on reincarnation, where a person’s actions in their current life determine the quality of their next life: good deeds are rewarded in a future life and bad deeds are paid for by a subsequent life of suffering - possibly even by being reborn as an animal. One very pleasant side effect of this obsession with the next life is that there is very little crime in Bangkok and we always felt very safe. In both religions, the ultimate goal is to escape from this cycle of rebirth and to enter Nirvana. However, in contrast to the many Hindu Gods, Buddhism does not acknowledge the existence of any Gods, but it does tolerate the belief in them - and this seems to be widely practised by the majority of Thai Buddhists who also worship the Hindu Gods - which seems to us to be playing safe! Ironically, Buddha himself appears to be idolised as if he were a God by Buddhists (although he did, supposedly, have supernatural powers and performed many miracles after his enlightenment).

In Thailand, almost all Buddhist males spend at least a few weeks in a monastery, as novices, in order to enhance their knowledge of Buddha’s teachings. During this period, they must give up all of their worldly possessions, including money, and beg for their living. We once went out at dawn to watch them begging for their breakfast but there didn’t seem to be much begging going on - they just walked around the back streets where people were waiting to give them food; their kindness presumably performed in order to obtain salvation for their next life. We had read that a monk must not take anything from a woman’s hands but we definitely saw them taking food from women that morning. Also, during our extensive use of public transport, we saw that monks always got on without paying. They certainly didn’t beg for their ride - they seemed to take it for granted that they could ride for free.

Our limited understanding of Buddhism, which we had gleaned from our guide books, had actually raised a few questions which we thought would forever remain a mystery to us. However, we were given a unique opportunity to find out more about Buddhism when we were visiting one of the many Buddhist monasteries in Bangkok - Wat Mahathat. Although this is a very important Buddhist temple, it is actually off the tourist trail as very little of it is open to visitors because it houses a Buddhist university (which specialises in languages). As we entered the grounds of the monastery, we were very warmly greeted by two monks who invited us to walk with them for a while. They were both language students who wanted to practise their English with us. They were being very informal so, after a little small talk (mostly about English football), we steered the conversation around to their religion and had the following questions answered:

• Is there a concept of good and bad for animals which influences their next reincarnation?
  Yes, but it was not easy for them to explain to us as we would need to study Buddhism to understand

• What stops Buddhists from being reincarnated as someone who follows another religion?
  Surprisingly nothing! It seems that it is quite acceptable as all religions have comparable moral codes which, if adhered to, will result in a favourable reincarnation (even if the other religion isn’t based around reincarnation!). However, being reincarnated as an atheist would be undesirable (but still possible) as it is then left to the individual to make the choice between right and wrong (which is probably also true for most non-atheists in the world!)

• Is Nirvana like Heaven?
  Not at all. Buddhists do have Heaven and Hell when they die but they don’t stay there forever. They really struggled to explain Nirvana to us as the abstract concepts didn’t map to their English very well and apparently even Buddhist monks can’t truly understand the concept until they have achieved enlightenment. What was clear was that you are alone in Nirvana (which might be different to the Hindu’s Nirvana).

• Did they know anyone who had actually attained enlightenment?
  No! This is because anyone who does must keep it a secret. Furthermore, it transpired that these fully fledged monks who had given up all their earthly desires to lead a monastic lifestyle studying the teachings of Buddha didn’t actually expect to achieve enlightenment during this lifetime! They were simply preparing for a better chance next time around! Now, you may be different, but this is where we started to get a little suspicious of it all. It seems to be an awful lot harder to achieve enlightenment, these days, than it was in Buddha’s day when, from what we had read, it seemed that you just needed to chat to the guy to see the light and they weren’t so secretive about it either.

Following our enlightenment, I decided to swap the novel I was reading for the copy of “Buddha’s Teachings” that was in our hotel room (and you can thank it for the size of this section). This book was surprisingly quite readable and contains an account of Buddha’s life followed by the Buddhist doctrines. However, there was one alarming section in it which explained what would happen in the event of the complete annihilation of the planet due to nuclear holocaust or planetary collision (pretty topical eh?). In this case, there would be nothing left to be reincarnated as but, apparently, this is nothing to worry about as all of our consciences will still exist out in space. Phew!

Well, we hope you have enjoyed your virtual trip to Bangkok. We’d love to hear what you thought about it so why not send us an email and (if you don’t mind) we’d love to add your comments to our Readers’ Comments page (we promise not to include your full name or email address). We welcome any suggestions or even criticisms that you might have and in return we’ll let you know when we add other trip reports.