Bangkok

Bangkok is Thailand's capital city and by far and away its largest urban area, with an official population of over 6 million and several million more unregistered inhabitants. Its Thai name is "Krung Thep" (Thai: กรุงเทพฯ); "Bangkok" actually refers to a small part of the city in the Thonburi district on the western bank of the Chao Phraya river.

Transport

Bangkok is infamous for its traffic congestion, and while apparently not as bad as it was a few years ago, if you spend any amount of time in the city you will inevitably end up finding yourself regularly stuck in traffic jams.

If you're accustomed to say European or Japanese cities, you may think public transport offers a practical way of avoiding this. Unfortunately it's not that easy: while Bangkok looks very modern on photographs, with lots of glittering skyscrapers, it still doesn't have much in the way of mass transit. There are just three metro-style rail lines: two belonging to the Skytrain (opened in the late 90s), and one underground line belonging to the Bangkok Metro (opened in 2004). These cover mainly the central business district (especially the Silom and Sukhumwit Road areas) and are very useful if you're travelling between destinations within easy walking distance of a station on one of these lines.

If not: some form of hire transport is the preferable alternative to a long and sweaty walk along overcrowded (or non-existent) pavements. This means either a normal taxi, a tuktuk, or a motorcycle taxi. Normal taxis are by far and away your best bet: all are now air-conditioned, and relatively cheap (at the time of writing 35 Baht for the first 2 kilometres and small baht increases according to distance travelled thereafter). For shorter trips motorcycle taxis are an option: groups of young men with orange overalls hanging about at intersections will take you on a wild ride down into the Soi for a few baht, but at some risk (spot the helmet), and don't bet on the driver being insured, or even part of some organisation.

As for tuktuks, the three-wheeled motorcycle engine-powered conveyances for which Thailand is somewhat famous, go: tuktuk drivers are usually criminal, insane or criminally insane.

Bangkok does of course have a public bus network; to my shame I must admit not having ever tried it out. On the plus side it is very cheap; however, the network is not very accessible if you do not read Thai, many buses are not airconditioned and all end up in the same traffic jams as everyone else.

Parks and Open Spaces

Although not as densely built up as say Tokyo, Bangkok is somewhat lacking in generally available open spaces, with much of the greenery visible from aerial photos being confined to private properties. The page "Bangkok Green Spaces" by Donald Gilliland provides a nice overview of public parks in the city.