The attractions of the city of angels

This city packages everything it has so attractively that anyone who visits will always want to return.
Bangkok, known as the “City of Angels”, is truly an ideal city for tourists. It’s a dynamic city, able to motivate visitors with a wide range of options: it offers the down-to-earth traditions of the city’s residents, while at the same time inviting the elite to enjoy the many aspects of progress that have made it a famous metropolis. One of Bangkok’s greatest strengths is its strategic location in the heart of Southeast Asia, a region with rapid economic growth. Making use of this advantage, Thailand does a very good job of selling its capital city to tourists. You can’t go anywhere in Bangkok without encountering tourists enjoying the city’s rhythms, or so it seems. Even outside the peak tourism seasons, the major attractions, such as the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun and the Chao Phraya, are swarming with tourists.
Many visitors treat Bangkok as more than just the gateway to other well-known tourism venues in Thailand; it’s also a comfortable “living room” that greets guests with a warm welcome. To provide greater convenience, over the past decade Bangkok has supersized many of its facilities. For example, in 2008 Suvarnabhumi Airport handled more than than 76 flights per hour, with 45 million passengers and three million tons of cargo passing through the main terminal that year.
Bangkok’s decision to make itself into a modern, pleasing and sophisticated city deserves to be acknowledged, because in doing so, it did not simply throw out its past. The city still has 400 Buddhist temples (most Thais are Buddhists), providing a calming, even magical atmosphere in the bustle of the metropolis. This is immediately evident when you start your visit at the 88-floor Baiyoke Sky Hotel, which at 309 meters is the tallest tower in Thailand. After buying your ticket, you’ll be whisked to the 77th floor observation desk to enjoy the panorama of Bangkok. If that doesn’t satisfy you, you can then proceed to the 84th floor and experience the city from the Revolving View Point, which also contains much useful information; such as, the distance between Bangkok and Jakarta is 2312.75 kilometers, or 1437.13 miles.
From up here, glassed in amidst the chill winds, you can comfortably see all that Bangkok has to offer. Several other tall new buildings can easily be spotted, such as the Lebua Hotel in the State Tower, with its famous rooftop restaurant, Sirocco. This restaurant offers fine dining in elegant surroundings with stunning views of Bangkok at night – a special treat for those with fat wallets and suitably stylish attire.Nevertheless, Bangkok has a million other facilities waiting to be explored. Looking out from Baiyoke, you can easily pick out another new high-rise hotel, Centara, equally prestigious and with a similar rooftop restaurant. Just as Bangkok has enhanced itself with diverse new eating venues, it has also added another popular tourist attraction – shopping centers. One that catches your eye from the Revolving View Point is the Crown Atrium, which is connected with the King Power Complex, a mega-complex located on Sri Ayuthaya Rangnam Road, a prestigious shopping area in downtown Bangkok. It offers an exclusive combination of art and culture, a modern theater, hotels, entertainment centers, and enough shops to satisfy the most hardcore shopper.
King Power has duty-free shops featuring branded goods with a very convenient shopping arrangement. Simply show your passport and your ticket home, pay for the goods, and you can pick up your purchases at the airport as you board your flight – no need to carry them around with you while you’re on holiday. This concept of duty and tax free shopping was first introduced to Thailand by a businessman from India, Kun Vichai Raksriaksorn, in 1989, but the cornerstone of the King Power complex was laid by his brother, Khun Vivat Raksriaksorn, in 2004.
It’s easy to spot plenty of other shopping centers from Baiyoke Tower. In another elite business district is the Siam Paragon, opposite the high-speed train station. This shopping center, a favorite with well-to-do young people, is right next to another equally trendy new mall, Central World, the largest in Southeast Asia. Another favorite for those with a few baht in their pockets is The Emporium, near the upper middle class district of Sukhumvit Road. But most tourists prefer the legendary Mah Boon Krong (MBK) Center, a lively eight-floor mall with over 2000 shops selling virtually everything. When you manage to peek between the tall buildings, you can see the city’s main river, the Chao Phraya, and on one of its banks a large, lovely temple, Wat Arun. Another excellent way to see Bangkok is from the Chao Phraya itself, by renting a boat for a short cruise – 20 minutes or longer, up to you. For many tourists, a trip along the Chao Phraya in a traditional prau is a must – an essential experience in the Venice of the East.
The Baiyoke Tower stands in a very busy district, but another equally lively part of town is the dynamic China Town, home to many of Thailand’s ethnic Chinese community and the center of the annual Lunar New Year celebrations. In China Town you can see Wat Traimit, a temple completed in 2008 that contains a large Buddha statue made of solid gold. A tour guide told us that the people of China Town recently raised funds to rebuild this temple as a present for King Bhumibol Adulyadej on his eightieth birthday. To adorn its interior, they moved in the historic 5.5-ton gold Buddha statue, which dates from the Sukothai period over 700 years ago. Previously, this statue, named Prakut Maha Suwan Patimagon, was housed at Wat Rakhang. It was believed to be made of plaster, covered with gold paint. It turned out that the statue had been coated in cement so that it would not be stolen by the Burmese, with whom the Sukothai kingdom was often at war. When the statue was moved some years ago, it fell and suffered some damage to the nose, which revealed that below the plaster, the statue was actually solid gold.
This four-story temple has a small museum that relates the history of China Town and the life of its people. One local Chinese resident has sponsored a set of wax statues in part of the museum. Like the many other temples in Bangkok, this one is always full of tourists and monks visiting from many countries and performing their devotions in a spirit of unity. Just two hours outside Bangkok, visitors can head to Damnoen Siduak to see the Ratchaburi floating morning market. It’s best to go early, so you can see the activity before too many other tourists get there. Bangkok also has its own floating market, Taling Chan, but Ratchaburi is larger and even more colorful and exciting. The vendors selling from their boats at Ratchaburi seem to be more interested in getting tourists to interact with the traditional atmosphere than in aggressively hawking their wares. Naturally, this is a very successful tactic to entice and appeal to visitors, and just one more reason why visitors always want to come back to Thailand.
From : garudamagazine