Luxury Bangkok Tours

Luxury Bangkok tours were not on my mind the day I put a $50 deposit on a flight from London to Istanbul some years back. The extent of my planning at the time, in fact, was little more than a thought towards a third-class railway ticket from Istanbul through Tehran and Baghdad to Bangkok. The year was 1978. Instinct fortunately stepped in and intervened.

The sole cosmopolitan city in a country of villages and towns, Bangkok was created as a municipality only in the early 1970s. While the Thai know the city as Krung Thep, foreigners on luxury Bangkok tours rely on a name with, at the very least, a long and quaint story. One interpretation has it that Bangkok derived from the phrase village (bang) of wild plums (makok).

Krung Thep is an abbreviated form of the city's full name. That translates to "the city of gods, the great city, the residence of the emerald Buddha, the impregnable city of the god Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city abounding in large royal palaces resembling the heavenly abode where the reincarnated gods live, a city built by Vishnukarm and given by Indra." Krung Thep alone translates, more or less, to "city of angels."

Luxury Bangkok Tours: Itinerary Stops

With a population of about 10 million, Bangkok--built in the 1780s--numbers among the world's largest cities. The product of explosive growth during the 1960s, Bangkok consumes more than half of Thailand's electric power. A host of architectural and cultural attractions beckon to visitors on luxury Bangkok tours. Chief among these is the Wat Phra Keao--wat being the Thai word for temple--with its sharp spires and low white surrounding wall. The Emerald Buddha it houses stands on an 11-meter altar under a nine-tiered umbrella.