Khaosan road or Khao San road (
Thai: ถนนข้าวสาร) is a short road in central
Bangkok,
Thailand. It is located in the Banglamphu neighborhood (
Phra Nakhon district) about 1 km north from the
Grand Palace with
Wat Phra Kaew. It has developed over the years into probably the most profound worldwide example of a "backpackers' ghetto", with relatively cheap accommodation compared to other areas of central Bangkok. The accommodation varies from 'mattress in a box' style hostels, to full Western-standard luxury.
Many tourists use Khaosan road as their base for exploring the rest of Thailand as there are many direct coaches from the street to virtually all major tourist destinations in Thailand, from
Chiang Mai in the North to
Ko Pha Ngan in the South. Many visitors will also take advantage of the abundance of relatively cheap travel agents to arrange visas and transport to surrounding countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia, though many (if not most) of these travel agents are scams of some sort, and travelers would do themselves wise to use Thai public buses instead.
Crafts, paintings, clothes, pirate
CDs, DVDs, fake educational diplomas, fake driver's licenses, food, second hand books as well as many items useful to
backpackers are among the common goods traded along the road.
Khaosan road has in recent years also become popular among local people, especially artists and art students. The road hosts a number of pubs and bars, where people of many nationalities meet and discuss their travels. Khaosan and the streets nearby are also Bangkok's center of dancing, partying and splashing water during
Thai New Year (
Songkran festival) on April 13 to April 15.
It is one of Bangkok's most vibrant streets, host to people from around the world. One Thai writer described the road as "a short road that has the longest dream in the world." The street certainly attracts some bizarre characters. Any visit to Bangkok is incomplete without a people-watching beer on Th Khaosan, an experience that could only be compared to a visit to a zoo; some consider it has degenerated into a
tourist ghetto.
Khao san means 'raw rice' in Thai. Before it became a tourist hotspot, the street was a major rice market for Bangkok.
Sukhumvit Road (
Thai: ถนน สุขุมวิท), or National Highway
3, is a major
highway in
Thailand, it is also a major surface road of Bangkok and other cities it winds thorough. It follows a coastal route from
Bangkok (the
capital) to
Trat and is just over 400km in length.
Sukhumvit Road is named after the fifth chief of the Department of Highways, Phra Pisan Sukhumvit. It is one of the four major highways of Thailand, the other three being
Phahonyothin highway (National Highway
1),
Mittraphap Highway (National Highway
2) and
Phetkasem highway (National Highway
4).
0 ความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น