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Previous: China 4
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Capital: Bangkok
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Thailand is one of my favourite destinations, it has an interesting and colourful ancient culture, the people are friendly, it is safe for travellers, the food is excellent and costs are low. The ancestors of the Thai people came from the Jiangxi river region in central China. They migrated south under the pressure of Chinese expansion and occupied many river valleys of South-east Asia. They gave rise to the Shan culture in Myanmar, the Thai in Thailand, the Lao in Laos and the Dai in the Chinese province of Yunnan whose languages all belong to the Tai linguistic family. In Thailand, the Thai settled in the fertile Chao Phraya river basin in the 13th and 14th centuries where they established the Chiang Mai kingdom in the north, the Sukhothai kingdom in the centre and the Ayutthaya kingdom in the south (near Bangkok). Bangkok became the capital in the late 18th century and the name of the country was changed from Siam to Thailand in 1939. The Japanese occupied Thailand during W.W.II. The country is a constitutional monarchy
with the military occasionally seizing power.
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This was my first visit to Bangkok. I did not know Khow San Road so I stayed in a hotel near the infamous Patpong red light district that was one of the well known sights not to be missed.
I did however visit the Royal Palace, the National Museum and some temples of which the Wat Arun shown here.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover how friendly and open Thai monks could be.
I was taking slides when I visited the Thonburi floating market so I salvaged some pictures to show you. Most of my other Thai photos were colour prints that I had to throw out because they had become badly discoloured.
The Chao Phraya plain where Bangkok is located is a densely populated fertile lowland delta criss-crossed by rivers and canals that serve as highways for much of the population.
Shops of all kinds are accessed only by the local waterways.
This unusual environment has naturally become a popular tourist attraction and the presence of many foreign visitors has only added to the oddity of the floating market.
Here you can see four or five tourist boats lined up to make their way through a narrow canal.
And finally, some of the local people...
... buying and selling foodstuffs from their narrow boats.
One of the numerous souvenir shops kept this baby elephant as an added attraction to draw customers away from his competitors! I wonder where the mother elephant was.
After two days, I moved on to Yangon.
