Phuket beaches are similar, mostly with soft sand, clear warm water and enclosed in pretty bays, so pages are organised by accommodation available, e.g. best big budget, best isolated…Each section has one large picture followed by three small ones.
Phuket is the largest of Thailand’s islands and the country’s most popular sand and sea destination, though much of it is tourism of the package kind.Access is easy via the international airport, and roads are excellent. Recent development has spoiled a lot of the sights and tranquility of the island, but brought reliable power and water supplies, comfortable hotels, cold beer and good varied food to the beaches - and isolationists can still find secluded spots.Phuket town/port has no beaches or significant night life, but good local craft shops and a lively market. It’s a useful transit point for inter-island ferries to places such as Phi Phi Don, Koh Lanta or Krabi.The beaches worth lying on are all on Phuket’s [pron. Pooket] west coast, with the busiest and being Patong in the centre.Bugbog researched and photographed all 11 beaches during December. This is the start of the best season in Thailand but weather was often unusually cloudy, very hot [over 30C] and all the island’s west shores had 1m - 2m waves, making sea lazing hazardous for adults and dangerous for small children. These kind of waves are not uncommon at this time of year. Unfortunately the waves tend to rise suddenly for a short distance, so they’re not wonderful for surfer dudes, but rideable.Phuket is not a cheap island by Thai standards. Backpackers on a tight budget or travellers seeking a quieter life would fare better on other islands such as Koh Lanta or Koh Samet.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Street Smarts in Bangkok
SURROUNDED by groups of civil servants greedily slurping bowls of soup at Chote Chitr, a tiny, family-run restaurant in the older part of Bangkok, our table soon overflows like a Thai Thanksgiving. The yam makhua, a salad of grilled long eggplants topped with tiny dried shrimps, combines the tang of fresh shallots with expert charring. Prepared by the hand of a skilled griller, the vegetables retain a smoky crunch on the outside, but a first bite pierces the crackling char and reveals a juicy eggplant so sweet it resembles a ripe peach, full of lime juice and fish sauce that has soaked into the flesh.
Next comes Chote Chitr’s gaeng som, a soup flavored with tamarind and palm sugar, packed with chunks of coarsely chopped cauliflower and large, meaty shrimp, their fat melting into the hot broth. Native to southern Thailand, where cooks use the abundant local seafood, gaeng som has a dense mouth feel, because the chef has added finely ground fish flesh into the stock, thickening it like roux.
Chote Chitr, which has been around some 90 years, prides itself on cooking recipes developed by ancient Thai royal courts, and its wall menu lists hundreds of dishes. These often rely on traditional ingredients tough to find today, and Chote Chitr’s cooks say little about how they uncover them. Dodging longtime customers and a small dog in the tiny dining room — just five simple rectangular tables packed together and open to the street — the chef brings out a plate of mee krob, crunchy stir-fried vermicelli flavored with a caramelized sauce of palm sugar, ginger, lemongrass and som saa. A fragrant, tart variety of orange now almost extinct in Bangkok, the som saa balances the sticky sweetness in the dish, which in the hands of a lesser chef can taste like strands of rock candy.
A decade ago, when I first moved to Bangkok, a friend who had emigrated there long before me let me in on a secret: the best food in Thailand is served by street vendors and at basic mom-and-pop restaurants. To prove his point, he dragged me to Chote Chitr, tucked into a side alley and decorated with nothing but a wall calendar. I saw no foreigners, and we pored through a menu all in Thai. We sampled the specialties, and I was quickly convinced, eating the same dishes then that I would enjoy 10 years later, and dozens of times in between.
That Chote Chitr would prove a culinary revelation shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise: small places often prove to be the best eating spots in many cities. But for historical reasons Bangkok may boast the finest street food on earth. The city has long attracted migrants from across Asia, so its street cuisine, both at vendor carts and in tiny restaurants, blends many styles of cooking. Even a simple snack like murtabak mixes Malaysian-style roti pancake with curry fillings that betray Indian and Burmese spices.
THAI habits also lend themselves to street meals. Since Thais normally eat many small meals rather than three squares and traditionally prefer to meet outside the house, street food suits them. Many Thai dishes can be cooked relatively quickly, and Thais are fastidious about cleanliness, important to customers worried about eating alongside a road.
But every trip to Thailand prompts me to wonder: can Bangkok remain the world leader in its simple culinary prowess? In an era of the globalization of street food, when the Internet now allows food lovers to share tips, will Bangkok’s street food lose its edge?
After culling through Thai food Web sites, I often arrive in Bangkok carrying a list of street dishes I must try — unripe mangoes dipped in sweet chili sauce, charcoal-grilled fish sausages, tacolike shells filled with shredded coconut. Every time I mention my list, real Thai gourmets tell me noodles, the ultimate quick snack, should be the real test of any street stall.
“Noodles are one of the great Thai secular religions,” wrote the longtime Thailand food critic Ung-aang Talay, adding that Thais think nothing of plodding across Bangkok to sample a new dish. Nearly every street in Bangkok has a vendor selling thin, slightly sweet egg noodles; wide, chewy rice noodles; pad Thai topped in gooey omelets. Even, occasionally, the northern Thailand noodle specialty known as khao soi. As the Thailand food blogger Austin Bush has suggested on his knowledgeable khao soi reflects the many foreign influences on Thailand cuisine. Khao soi blends egg noodles with a mild, Indian-style broth and toppings of crispy noodles, shallots and pickled cabbage, a Burmese touch that adds an acidic flavor cutting the rich, oily curry.
Like rock bands, the best noodle slingers attract groupies. Normally, a plate of noodles costs the equivalent of less than a dollar, but at Raan Jay Fai, a simple open-air restaurant in old Bangkok, noodles run four times as much. Outside Raan Jay Fai, lines of cars, tuk-tuks and motorcycles crawl through the hot air, belching exhaust toward Jay Fai’s al fresco seating. Still, at Jay Fai’s opening time of around 4 in the afternoon, a line waits to be served, and the cook throws handfuls of chicken chunks and noodles into a pan as if she were a metronome on double time.
I tried Jay Fai noodles stir-fried with spicy Thai basil, a dish also called drunken noodles. Some Thais believe the dish got its name because street cooks serve it into the wee hours, when their clientele is the drunkest. The broad rice noodles come out of the pan thin and chewy, as if they could tear easily. Yet they never turn tough, and the chef has thrown in large bits of sweet Thai basil, the edges seared with a slight soy aftertaste.
Raan Jay Fai opened far from central Bangkok, near the older part of town, which contains a large percentage of vendors who have stuck to traditional recipes. Not far away, in the heart of Little India, a solitary man stands over a giant wok crackling with oil, focused on his task. All around him, shoppers lugging bags of saris, incense and Bollywood videos squeeze past one another on the sidewalk, spilling into the street and sometimes knocking a passerby to the ground.
For less than the equivalent of 50 cents the man hands out bags of pakoras and crisp vegetarian samosas. As you bite into a samosa, the triangular pastry yields an almost liquid mix of potatoes and spices, like a Shanghai-style dumpling filled with soup. This being Thailand, it also packs a punch, with far more ground chilies inside than in the samosas you would encounter in a New York Indian restaurant.
Though Thailand easily absorbs cuisines like Indian, Malay or Cambodian, one influence dominates. Thais of Chinese heritage run many Bangkok industries, and at night they gather to talk shop at the city’s basic Chinese-Thai restaurants, many of which serve fresh ingredients cooked simply and quickly. Some, like the famous Somboon Seafood, have been around so long they’ve become Bangkok institutions. At Nguan Lee, a typical Chinese-Thai joint, waitresses bring out fresh local sea bass, plucked from tanks outside and steamed with chilies, chopped raw garlic and a broth of lime juice and rinds of kaffir lime. Not just sprinkled on top, the chilies have been embedded into the fish meat, so they pop out of the soft flesh onto the tongue.
Still, Nguan Lee, becoming popular with visitors, seems to have watered down the garlic in this dish. A friend recommends a more full-on garlic experience, plaa tod kratiem phrik Thai, fish coated in garlic and thin chilies and then deep-fried. This satisfies the garlic craving. The fish skin crunches like cornflakes, and squirts hot, oily garlic into my mouth, like garlic’s purest essence. Inside the crunchy crust, the sea bass remains tender.
One step down from a real sit-down restaurant like Nguan Lee are the kap gaeng (with rice) joints, collections of street stalls serving various curries over rice. Kap gaeng outlets reveal the diversity of Thai regional cooking, often lost at restaurants in America, which tend to focus on the better-known dishes of central and northeastern Thailand. At Talad Loong Perm, a collection of stalls near Thai Airways’ main office in Bangkok, a market that made Food & Wine’s 2007 “Go List,” vendors stir crimson, orange and yellow curries floating with wisps of coconut milk. One chef ladles out gaeng leung, a southern curry flavored with chunky squash and turmeric.
I timidly taste a spoonful of gaeng pa, or jungle curry, maybe the hottest dish in Thailand the intense chilies and bamboo shoots traditionally used to cover the flavor of wild game or nearly spoiled meat. Jungle curry may have served a purpose in rural areas, but it is made these days with tender chicken, and the fire overwhelms any flavor of the bird, leaving the lips scalded and unable to taste.
Knowing I love trying many dishes at the same meal, on one trip to Bangkok my friend Noy takes me around to Bangkok’s modern indoor food courts, upscale versions of kap gaeng. Food Loft, which sits atop the upscale Central department store, has become the hottest version several levels of comfortable booths packed with beautiful people wearing wrap-around shades. Food Loft’s gaeng som packs the proper mix of tart and sweet, but it tastes thin, and seems to have none of the hearty ground-up fish. It gets worse: the fresh spring rolls, veggies and shrimp wrapped in a soft wonton skin, come served with a gluey sauce that tastes too much of corn starch.
Disappointment never lasts long on the streets of Bangkok, though. Back at Chote Chitr, the chef welcomes a friend and me by name. After greedily slurping down gaeng som and a salad made from banana flowers, we consider stepping outside for dessert, since a shop nearby sells glutinous rice cooked in coconut cream.
But we don’t want to leave, and settle on one of Chote Chitr’s specials, a reimagining of the classic traditional Thai papaya salad, som tam. Instead of making som tam with unripe papaya, Chote Chitr uses pineapple and mango, with salty fish sauce drawing out the natural sugar of the so-ripe-they’re-ready-to-turn fruits. I vacuum them down, waddle into a cab, and fall asleep on the ride home, thinking about my next meal.
POINT AND ORDER
GETTING THERE
Thai Airways flies nonstop between Kennedy Airport and Bangkok. Flights in early February start at $1,015. Other airlines (United, Continental, American, Northwest, Japan Airlines and All Nippon, among others) change planes and sometimes carriers en route, often in Tokyo.
WHERE TO EAT
Many simple Bangkok restaurants have no working phone (and few employees who speak English), so it may take some time to find them. You might also have to resort to the timeless point-at-what-looks-tasty method of ordering. Have your hotel write down the name and address in Thai, and embark upon your street food hunt with considerable patience. Dinner for two at most of these restaurants will cost less than 500 baht, about $16 at 31 baht to the U.S. dollar.
Raan Jay Fai
327 Mahachai Road, (66-2) 223-9384, is near Wat Saket in the older part of Bangkok
Nguan Lee
corner of Soi Lang Suan and Soi Sarasin, is in the central business district; (66-2) 250-0936.
Chote Chitr
Prang Pu Thorn alley, off Tanao Road, is in the old part of Bangkok.
Samosa seller
near the corner of Phahurat and Chakraphet Roads in Little India. Look for a small alley with a sign above it that says “Sunny Video Indian Movies.” Often open only during the daytime.
Food Loft
top floor, Central Chidlom department store, at the corner of Ploenchit Road and Soi Chidlom, is in the central business district; (66-2) 793-7070; http://www.central.co.th/.
The best areas for street snacks include the side streets off of Yaowarat Road, in Chinatown; Talad Loong Perm (Loong Perm market), on 89 Vibhavadi-Rangsit Road, is in the northern part of Bangkok, just behind the Thai Airways building.
Next comes Chote Chitr’s gaeng som, a soup flavored with tamarind and palm sugar, packed with chunks of coarsely chopped cauliflower and large, meaty shrimp, their fat melting into the hot broth. Native to southern Thailand, where cooks use the abundant local seafood, gaeng som has a dense mouth feel, because the chef has added finely ground fish flesh into the stock, thickening it like roux.
Chote Chitr, which has been around some 90 years, prides itself on cooking recipes developed by ancient Thai royal courts, and its wall menu lists hundreds of dishes. These often rely on traditional ingredients tough to find today, and Chote Chitr’s cooks say little about how they uncover them. Dodging longtime customers and a small dog in the tiny dining room — just five simple rectangular tables packed together and open to the street — the chef brings out a plate of mee krob, crunchy stir-fried vermicelli flavored with a caramelized sauce of palm sugar, ginger, lemongrass and som saa. A fragrant, tart variety of orange now almost extinct in Bangkok, the som saa balances the sticky sweetness in the dish, which in the hands of a lesser chef can taste like strands of rock candy.
A decade ago, when I first moved to Bangkok, a friend who had emigrated there long before me let me in on a secret: the best food in Thailand is served by street vendors and at basic mom-and-pop restaurants. To prove his point, he dragged me to Chote Chitr, tucked into a side alley and decorated with nothing but a wall calendar. I saw no foreigners, and we pored through a menu all in Thai. We sampled the specialties, and I was quickly convinced, eating the same dishes then that I would enjoy 10 years later, and dozens of times in between.
That Chote Chitr would prove a culinary revelation shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise: small places often prove to be the best eating spots in many cities. But for historical reasons Bangkok may boast the finest street food on earth. The city has long attracted migrants from across Asia, so its street cuisine, both at vendor carts and in tiny restaurants, blends many styles of cooking. Even a simple snack like murtabak mixes Malaysian-style roti pancake with curry fillings that betray Indian and Burmese spices.
THAI habits also lend themselves to street meals. Since Thais normally eat many small meals rather than three squares and traditionally prefer to meet outside the house, street food suits them. Many Thai dishes can be cooked relatively quickly, and Thais are fastidious about cleanliness, important to customers worried about eating alongside a road.
But every trip to Thailand prompts me to wonder: can Bangkok remain the world leader in its simple culinary prowess? In an era of the globalization of street food, when the Internet now allows food lovers to share tips, will Bangkok’s street food lose its edge?
After culling through Thai food Web sites, I often arrive in Bangkok carrying a list of street dishes I must try — unripe mangoes dipped in sweet chili sauce, charcoal-grilled fish sausages, tacolike shells filled with shredded coconut. Every time I mention my list, real Thai gourmets tell me noodles, the ultimate quick snack, should be the real test of any street stall.
“Noodles are one of the great Thai secular religions,” wrote the longtime Thailand food critic Ung-aang Talay, adding that Thais think nothing of plodding across Bangkok to sample a new dish. Nearly every street in Bangkok has a vendor selling thin, slightly sweet egg noodles; wide, chewy rice noodles; pad Thai topped in gooey omelets. Even, occasionally, the northern Thailand noodle specialty known as khao soi. As the Thailand food blogger Austin Bush has suggested on his knowledgeable khao soi reflects the many foreign influences on Thailand cuisine. Khao soi blends egg noodles with a mild, Indian-style broth and toppings of crispy noodles, shallots and pickled cabbage, a Burmese touch that adds an acidic flavor cutting the rich, oily curry.
Like rock bands, the best noodle slingers attract groupies. Normally, a plate of noodles costs the equivalent of less than a dollar, but at Raan Jay Fai, a simple open-air restaurant in old Bangkok, noodles run four times as much. Outside Raan Jay Fai, lines of cars, tuk-tuks and motorcycles crawl through the hot air, belching exhaust toward Jay Fai’s al fresco seating. Still, at Jay Fai’s opening time of around 4 in the afternoon, a line waits to be served, and the cook throws handfuls of chicken chunks and noodles into a pan as if she were a metronome on double time.
I tried Jay Fai noodles stir-fried with spicy Thai basil, a dish also called drunken noodles. Some Thais believe the dish got its name because street cooks serve it into the wee hours, when their clientele is the drunkest. The broad rice noodles come out of the pan thin and chewy, as if they could tear easily. Yet they never turn tough, and the chef has thrown in large bits of sweet Thai basil, the edges seared with a slight soy aftertaste.
Raan Jay Fai opened far from central Bangkok, near the older part of town, which contains a large percentage of vendors who have stuck to traditional recipes. Not far away, in the heart of Little India, a solitary man stands over a giant wok crackling with oil, focused on his task. All around him, shoppers lugging bags of saris, incense and Bollywood videos squeeze past one another on the sidewalk, spilling into the street and sometimes knocking a passerby to the ground.
For less than the equivalent of 50 cents the man hands out bags of pakoras and crisp vegetarian samosas. As you bite into a samosa, the triangular pastry yields an almost liquid mix of potatoes and spices, like a Shanghai-style dumpling filled with soup. This being Thailand, it also packs a punch, with far more ground chilies inside than in the samosas you would encounter in a New York Indian restaurant.
Though Thailand easily absorbs cuisines like Indian, Malay or Cambodian, one influence dominates. Thais of Chinese heritage run many Bangkok industries, and at night they gather to talk shop at the city’s basic Chinese-Thai restaurants, many of which serve fresh ingredients cooked simply and quickly. Some, like the famous Somboon Seafood, have been around so long they’ve become Bangkok institutions. At Nguan Lee, a typical Chinese-Thai joint, waitresses bring out fresh local sea bass, plucked from tanks outside and steamed with chilies, chopped raw garlic and a broth of lime juice and rinds of kaffir lime. Not just sprinkled on top, the chilies have been embedded into the fish meat, so they pop out of the soft flesh onto the tongue.
Still, Nguan Lee, becoming popular with visitors, seems to have watered down the garlic in this dish. A friend recommends a more full-on garlic experience, plaa tod kratiem phrik Thai, fish coated in garlic and thin chilies and then deep-fried. This satisfies the garlic craving. The fish skin crunches like cornflakes, and squirts hot, oily garlic into my mouth, like garlic’s purest essence. Inside the crunchy crust, the sea bass remains tender.
One step down from a real sit-down restaurant like Nguan Lee are the kap gaeng (with rice) joints, collections of street stalls serving various curries over rice. Kap gaeng outlets reveal the diversity of Thai regional cooking, often lost at restaurants in America, which tend to focus on the better-known dishes of central and northeastern Thailand. At Talad Loong Perm, a collection of stalls near Thai Airways’ main office in Bangkok, a market that made Food & Wine’s 2007 “Go List,” vendors stir crimson, orange and yellow curries floating with wisps of coconut milk. One chef ladles out gaeng leung, a southern curry flavored with chunky squash and turmeric.
I timidly taste a spoonful of gaeng pa, or jungle curry, maybe the hottest dish in Thailand the intense chilies and bamboo shoots traditionally used to cover the flavor of wild game or nearly spoiled meat. Jungle curry may have served a purpose in rural areas, but it is made these days with tender chicken, and the fire overwhelms any flavor of the bird, leaving the lips scalded and unable to taste.
Knowing I love trying many dishes at the same meal, on one trip to Bangkok my friend Noy takes me around to Bangkok’s modern indoor food courts, upscale versions of kap gaeng. Food Loft, which sits atop the upscale Central department store, has become the hottest version several levels of comfortable booths packed with beautiful people wearing wrap-around shades. Food Loft’s gaeng som packs the proper mix of tart and sweet, but it tastes thin, and seems to have none of the hearty ground-up fish. It gets worse: the fresh spring rolls, veggies and shrimp wrapped in a soft wonton skin, come served with a gluey sauce that tastes too much of corn starch.
Disappointment never lasts long on the streets of Bangkok, though. Back at Chote Chitr, the chef welcomes a friend and me by name. After greedily slurping down gaeng som and a salad made from banana flowers, we consider stepping outside for dessert, since a shop nearby sells glutinous rice cooked in coconut cream.
But we don’t want to leave, and settle on one of Chote Chitr’s specials, a reimagining of the classic traditional Thai papaya salad, som tam. Instead of making som tam with unripe papaya, Chote Chitr uses pineapple and mango, with salty fish sauce drawing out the natural sugar of the so-ripe-they’re-ready-to-turn fruits. I vacuum them down, waddle into a cab, and fall asleep on the ride home, thinking about my next meal.
POINT AND ORDER
GETTING THERE
Thai Airways flies nonstop between Kennedy Airport and Bangkok. Flights in early February start at $1,015. Other airlines (United, Continental, American, Northwest, Japan Airlines and All Nippon, among others) change planes and sometimes carriers en route, often in Tokyo.
WHERE TO EAT
Many simple Bangkok restaurants have no working phone (and few employees who speak English), so it may take some time to find them. You might also have to resort to the timeless point-at-what-looks-tasty method of ordering. Have your hotel write down the name and address in Thai, and embark upon your street food hunt with considerable patience. Dinner for two at most of these restaurants will cost less than 500 baht, about $16 at 31 baht to the U.S. dollar.
Raan Jay Fai
327 Mahachai Road, (66-2) 223-9384, is near Wat Saket in the older part of Bangkok
Nguan Lee
corner of Soi Lang Suan and Soi Sarasin, is in the central business district; (66-2) 250-0936.
Chote Chitr
Prang Pu Thorn alley, off Tanao Road, is in the old part of Bangkok.
Samosa seller
near the corner of Phahurat and Chakraphet Roads in Little India. Look for a small alley with a sign above it that says “Sunny Video Indian Movies.” Often open only during the daytime.
Food Loft
top floor, Central Chidlom department store, at the corner of Ploenchit Road and Soi Chidlom, is in the central business district; (66-2) 793-7070; http://www.central.co.th/.
The best areas for street snacks include the side streets off of Yaowarat Road, in Chinatown; Talad Loong Perm (Loong Perm market), on 89 Vibhavadi-Rangsit Road, is in the northern part of Bangkok, just behind the Thai Airways building.
Elephants in Thailand
Have you ever seen elephant? If you are thai or live here,this is not an excellent question.in thailand elephant is everywhere,in architecture,temple,palace,museum,bridge,souvenir or the real elephant walking along the roadside.
Thais are firmly close to elephant. The oldest evidence confirming the relationship between Thais and elephant is the 5,000 B.C. art cave. The art cave at Pha Tam, Khong Jeam district, Ubonrajchathani which are pictures of wild elephants and elephant catching. In the passed, elephant became Thais’ most important friend thanks to their usefulness. Elephant can assistant in construction hauling heavy construction materials. They are also vehicles. You can ride them around jungle or on all types of terrain. Siam history is full of elephant. Elephant are auspicious animal showing King’s prestige especially the extraordinary one such as the White elephant or other strange color ones. Thais believe that the more white elephant the king has, the more powerful he is. In contrast, this belief causes many historical wars, snatching the white elephant, among Laos, Burma and Thailand.So the ancient Thai capital, Ayudhaya built a wild elephant catching’s place called Pa Niad. This corral is a valuable historical place showing the Thai ancestor’s wisdom in catching the large beast. Thais believe that God created elephants, divided to four families and subdivided to 16 types. There is an old textbook regarding elephant’s species which is the most oldest elephant textbook in the world. The three-headed elephant called Erawan elephant played the vital role in Thai history. The legend said that this elephant belonged to Indra, head of all gods, so you will see lots of Erawan elephant in Thai art. Bangkok logo has an Erawan elephant. Moreover, if you want to see the huge Erawan elephant building, you can see it at Erawan museum, Samut Prakarn province.Everyone thinks that elephant is Thai symbol because Thais believe that elephant represents goodness and richness. In the reign of King Rama II, elephant’s picture was stamped on Thai flag and then it was changed as you see today. Today it’s not wrong if you say that Thailand is the elephant’s country because elephant is everywhere in Thailand even along the roadside where they are not suppose to be. Surprisingly, no matter how much Thais love elephant, elephant is still in trouble and their home is destroyed day by day. Luckily, now there are more people trying to help these huge and friendly animals. Although Thailand is the elephant’s country, lack of taking good care of these animals may lose them forever.
Thais are firmly close to elephant. The oldest evidence confirming the relationship between Thais and elephant is the 5,000 B.C. art cave. The art cave at Pha Tam, Khong Jeam district, Ubonrajchathani which are pictures of wild elephants and elephant catching. In the passed, elephant became Thais’ most important friend thanks to their usefulness. Elephant can assistant in construction hauling heavy construction materials. They are also vehicles. You can ride them around jungle or on all types of terrain. Siam history is full of elephant. Elephant are auspicious animal showing King’s prestige especially the extraordinary one such as the White elephant or other strange color ones. Thais believe that the more white elephant the king has, the more powerful he is. In contrast, this belief causes many historical wars, snatching the white elephant, among Laos, Burma and Thailand.So the ancient Thai capital, Ayudhaya built a wild elephant catching’s place called Pa Niad. This corral is a valuable historical place showing the Thai ancestor’s wisdom in catching the large beast. Thais believe that God created elephants, divided to four families and subdivided to 16 types. There is an old textbook regarding elephant’s species which is the most oldest elephant textbook in the world. The three-headed elephant called Erawan elephant played the vital role in Thai history. The legend said that this elephant belonged to Indra, head of all gods, so you will see lots of Erawan elephant in Thai art. Bangkok logo has an Erawan elephant. Moreover, if you want to see the huge Erawan elephant building, you can see it at Erawan museum, Samut Prakarn province.Everyone thinks that elephant is Thai symbol because Thais believe that elephant represents goodness and richness. In the reign of King Rama II, elephant’s picture was stamped on Thai flag and then it was changed as you see today. Today it’s not wrong if you say that Thailand is the elephant’s country because elephant is everywhere in Thailand even along the roadside where they are not suppose to be. Surprisingly, no matter how much Thais love elephant, elephant is still in trouble and their home is destroyed day by day. Luckily, now there are more people trying to help these huge and friendly animals. Although Thailand is the elephant’s country, lack of taking good care of these animals may lose them forever.
Jazz in Bangkok
For jazz lovers, they must have been waiting for their bigwig "Hua Hin Jazz Festival." We believe all of them who were in the festival must have enjoyed and had a great time. If you love jazz but many reasons caused you to miss this festival, there are still some cool places in Bangkok where you can actually have your own "jazz-fest" as often as you can!
"It Simply Swings!" This is all about the Living Room at Sheraton Grande Sukumvit. The venue leads in live jazz performance with nice and comfortable ambience. This high-ceilinged venue provides you comfortable sofas where you can sit back and enjoy the jazzy notes from international jazz musicians every night. In this month from 17th-July 20th, the venue hosts Grammy award-winning jazz diva, Carmen Bradford back again. If you love the classic jazz with vocal, the evening with Carmen Bradford at the Living Room is waiting for you!
Bamboo Bar at the Oriental Bangkok is another place to hear the rhythm of jazz for live performance featuring international jazz vocalist. The venue is decorated in jungle-like style and not too crowded with cozy atmosphere. Now, Bamboo bar welcomes a sultry jazz vocalist Frankye Kelly who will give you a sensational jazz night every Monday till Saturday from March 1st – June 30th.
Another venue hosting world's famous jazz singer is the Diplomat Bar at Conrad Bangkok hotel. You can loose yourself with the sound of jazz music as well as the taste of great cocktails among the sophisticated decoration in spacious area. The place is usually crowded on Friday nights so you should make a reservation. The venue currently hosts a talented American pure soul vocalist Ernesta Dunbar who will light up your evening Mondays till Saturdays from April 24th – June 30th.
Apart from hotel venues, there is the Saxophone Pub and Restaurant near the Victory Monument. The venue suits those who craze about Jazz and Blues. The place is spacious yet often crowded. It hosts the live Jazz and Blues by the local musicians but skilled as international artists.
From:at-bangkok.com
"It Simply Swings!" This is all about the Living Room at Sheraton Grande Sukumvit. The venue leads in live jazz performance with nice and comfortable ambience. This high-ceilinged venue provides you comfortable sofas where you can sit back and enjoy the jazzy notes from international jazz musicians every night. In this month from 17th-July 20th, the venue hosts Grammy award-winning jazz diva, Carmen Bradford back again. If you love the classic jazz with vocal, the evening with Carmen Bradford at the Living Room is waiting for you!
Bamboo Bar at the Oriental Bangkok is another place to hear the rhythm of jazz for live performance featuring international jazz vocalist. The venue is decorated in jungle-like style and not too crowded with cozy atmosphere. Now, Bamboo bar welcomes a sultry jazz vocalist Frankye Kelly who will give you a sensational jazz night every Monday till Saturday from March 1st – June 30th.
Another venue hosting world's famous jazz singer is the Diplomat Bar at Conrad Bangkok hotel. You can loose yourself with the sound of jazz music as well as the taste of great cocktails among the sophisticated decoration in spacious area. The place is usually crowded on Friday nights so you should make a reservation. The venue currently hosts a talented American pure soul vocalist Ernesta Dunbar who will light up your evening Mondays till Saturdays from April 24th – June 30th.
Apart from hotel venues, there is the Saxophone Pub and Restaurant near the Victory Monument. The venue suits those who craze about Jazz and Blues. The place is spacious yet often crowded. It hosts the live Jazz and Blues by the local musicians but skilled as international artists.
From:at-bangkok.com
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