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BangkokThailand’s commercial hub, Bangkok, leads Southeast Asia as its economic and cultural center. It’s a rapidly developing, industrialized city with over 6 million inhabitants, lying in the eastern portion of the country along the Chao Phraya River.
Bangkok’s accelerated growth has caused the city many problems – infrastructure, pollution, heavy traffic jams – but it’s also very much alive, where a large, westernized city meets eastern culture to create a unique and intoxicating culture. While most of the population of Thailand are ethnic Thai, the significant portion of the remainder are Chinese and Indian emigrants. These minorities have staked out their own pockets in the big city with the Chinatown and Phahurat districts that have been around for some 300 years. There’s an overwhelming variety of Chinese-Indian-Thai food, clothes, jewelry, fabric, hardware, and automotive parts sold in the small shops and stalls crowding these narrow, traffic-ridden streets along with seedier establishments that Bangkok has become somewhat infamous for: pawnshops, brothels, and heroin. If you want to immerse yourself in the history and culture of the country, be sure to check out Thailand’s National Museum, the largest museum in Southeast Asia. The museum is saturated in Thai art from all periods and styles, Dvaravati to Ratanakosin, as well as a decent collection of traditional musical instruments from the region. Other exhibits include ceramics, clothing, textiles, royal regalia, woodcarvings, Chinese art and weaponry, and the restored Buddhaisawan Chapel. Within this chapel are many well-preserved murals of Buddha images like the Phra Phuttha Sihing. A curious attraction is Bangkok’s Ancient City, located just south of the capital. It’s lauded as the largest open-air museum in the world and takes over 100 of Thailand’s most impressive monuments and displays scaled down models of them over a 200-acre area shaped like the country itself. While obviously not a stand-in for the real monuments themselves, it’s a good way to get a Cliff’s Notes version of the country if you’re short on time. Link to this page! Copy the source below and paste it into your page source. It's that easy!
 TripLogs: Bangkok |
