Bangkok In Pictures
Fasten your seatbelt as this Picture Guide to Bangkok comes with some of the best shots of Bangkok pictures you have ever seen.
Brought to you by Bangkok-based professional photopgraher David van Driessche this is one of the most to be prolific picture guides to be featured on Euromentravel.com.
Be sure to check out David’s Website on photography that includes his splendid portfolio as well as his unique photography tour packages in order to keep up with his latest works. As this guide will show they are well worth it. Enough talking, let’s see into some fabulous Bangkok pictures now.
Thailand’s capital
As the capital city of Thailand Bangkok is a vibrant hub as well as a city that never sleeps. The main tourist sections are the old city quarter where you can find the Grand Palace with the Emerald Buddha statue, the Wat Pho Reclining Buddha Temple famous for its Thai massage school and Wat Arun, on the other side of the Chao Praya River designed in Khmer style and decorated from the left over glass of old Chinese junks.
With a population of 7 million people we encounter a city famous for good food, excellent nightlife and happy smiling people that flock to the city from all over the country looking for a job opportunity they cannot find home.
Aerial view on Wat Ratchanatdaram, a Buddhist temple at the intersection between Ratchadamnoen Klang and Maha Chai Road, which you pass when you enter the old city. This temple is currently under construction.
The expat scene in Bangkok
Bangkok has a big expat scene with many English and foreign restaurants where foreigners come for drinks or good food after work. You can find a huge variety of international cuisine, mainly Japanese Sushi, Chinese Dim Sum or Korean Barbeques. But also Scandinavian and Greek food are not difficult to find here if you crave your home cooking.
English Restaurant/Sports Bar in Bangkok
Nightlife in Bangkok
Bangkok’s nightlife reached worldwide fame in the 1980s with the Song One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head. The main areas for Bangkok Nightlife are located around Rachadaphisek Road. Locals favor so-called RCA Street, while Nana Entertainment Complex, Soi Cowboy and Patpong are naughty nightlife districts that open every day from 8 till 2 in the morning.
Bangkok Nightife stageshow in Soi Cowboy
Expositions
Thailand has many expos in the main three areas in Bangkok, where Diamonds, Tourism and even Photography shows and expositions are organized many times a year, the most famous being the Car Expo in Muang Thong Thani, one of the biggest expo halls in Asia. The other two are Queen Sirikit National Stadium and BITEC. Through the many model agencies an abundance of beautiful Thai girls are hired to promote the products on sale.
Expo hostesses in Bangkok, Thailand
Festivals
Thai people love to party. An annual highlight is the Songkran festival in April (Thai New year) when the whole country shoots water pistols and rubs white with ice powder into each other’s faces (no joke). The lady pictured below is a cosplay star, a new fashion that came from Japan and is focused on having youngsters dress up in their favorite cartoon action figure.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get stranger then Japan never ceases to amaze.
Canals in Bangkok
Bangkok used to be called the Venice of the East, with many canals called klongs. Hiring a small boat is an attraction in itself and allows you to visit the areas inhabitated by the locals exclusively. Here you can see how the locals live today people in a way that doesn’t differ much from how they lived hundreds of years ago.
River scene in the ‘Venice of the East’
A Local Bangkok elderly enjoying his afternoon at the side of the canals.
With 71,5 years male life expectancy in Thailand is almost on a Western level.
Yellow Shirts & Red Shirts
Politically Thailand had some problems in the last years, the yellow shirts and the red shirts as they are called, easily explained as the rich elite and the more poor north eastern work force, don’t always get along and this can result in aggressive confrontations that leads to a drop in tourism for Bangkok.
Working class red shirts in downtown Bangkok
Sukhumvit Road
Sukhumvit Road is the main road in Bangkok and going all the way to Cambodia through Pattaya. It starts near Nana Area, where during nighttime you can find many bars and little shops open till late. On soi 3, there is the Arabian Quarter with many Middle Eastern restaurants.
Street scene in world-famous Sukhumvit Road
Fortune tellers
Thais are very superstitious with clairvoyants and fortune tellers everywhere on the streets and near temples.
By far not frowned upon by the locals: Fortune tellig in the streets of Bangkok
Chinatown in Bangkok
In Bangkok you can find a large community of Chinese people, and Bangkok also has the largest Chinatown Area in South East Asia called Yaowarat.
Grocery delivery in Bangkok’s Chinatown
Every day life in Bangkok
Back alley in Chinatown, people live, eat and relax. Daily business in Thailand is more taking place outside than inside.
Almost reminds of a favela.
More Every day life
A Pharmacy in Yaowarat, Chinatown.
A pharmacist behind the counter in a Chinatown pharmacy in Bangkok
Gold as an investment
Gold shops are found all over in Thailand. Thais like gold, and also use it as an investment when they have extra money which they then in turn change to cash when finances are bad.
Thai gold shop.
The work force
Street workers in Bangkok, people can earn a very minimum-wage from waiting tables, working as construction workers and maids, earning only 200 USD or less a month while the owner of a high-rise building can be a multi-millionaire. Rich and poor are not separated in Bangkok, the millionaire and the streetworker might just be neighbors.
Streetworkers fixing a water line in central Bangkok
Streetfood in Bangkok
Bangkok is a paradise for foodies, in every corner are people preparing Thai or Chinese dishes, and starting from one euro you can have a nice lunch or even dinner sitting outside on a plastic chair.
Thai streetfood vendors.
Skyline
The impressive Bangkok Skyline, picture taken at about 22.00h. Click the picture for full size.
Splendid bangkok picture shot taken via drone.
Religion
Thailand is a very religious country with its main religion being Buddhism.
Locals in front of a Buddhist shrine.