Five days in Bangkok and Khao Yai

By the time our flight touched down at Bangkok’s Don Mueang International Airport shortly before noon, the day was already 10 hours old. We had left Dubai at 1.35am aboard flydubai’s inaugural direct service to Don Mueang, travelling as part of the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s Amazing Thailand media trip to Bangkok and Khao Yai. Bangkok greeted us with considerably more ceremony than most travellers can expect after a night spent on a plane.

There were representatives from the Tourism Authority of Thailand, flydubai and the airport, women in traditional Thai dress, flowers, photographs and a formal welcome before we finally emerged into the city. It was also where we met Nana, our lovely Thai guide for the next five days. Warm, funny and seemingly impossible to fluster, she would become our interpreter, organiser and source of local knowledge, while somehow keeping a group of journalists and content creators moving in roughly the same direction.

At Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok, where we would spend two nights, another floral welcome awaited: delicate jasmine garlands, followed by cold drinks and lunch at ALATi.

The hotel sits beside Siam Paragon, which made resisting Bangkok’s first shopping opportunity practically impossible. We wandered through the mall after dinner before returning to the hotel, though the evening was far from over.

Several people in our group wanted to smoke shisha, so we headed out again, this time to Bangkok’s Arab Street.

Rain had fallen and the streets gleamed beneath neon signs. Restaurants advertised Middle Eastern food, Arabic lettering appeared across shopfronts and small stores were packed with Thai cosmetics, perfumes, clothes and the sort of inexpensive discoveries that make walking through an unfamiliar neighbourhood infinitely more interesting than going directly from one attraction to another.

Then, from somewhere behind me, came an enthusiastic sales pitch. “Pakistani food! Indian food!” I turned around, momentarily baffled. Did he really think I had travelled from Dubai to Thailand to sample Indian and Pakistani food? I politely resisted the offer.

The irony was even starker when we passed a restaurant advertising Emirati breakfast. Here I was, thousands of kilometres from Dubai, walking through Bangkok in the rain, and the food signs seemed determined to send me home.

I preferred the little Thai stores. We wandered in and out, umbrellas opening and closing as the rain came and went, with no real objective beyond seeing what was there. It was my first proper look at Bangkok beyond the formal welcome, and a much better introduction to the city than anything that could have been scheduled.

Bangkok in detail

The following morning began at the Grand Palace, where understatements have never been part of the architectural vocabulary. Nana guided us through the sprawling complex as we moved between temples, courtyards and monumental guardian figures.

The golden chedis are impossible to miss, while roofs layered in green, orange and deep blue look magical, their edges sweeping upwards into elaborate finials. Mosaic surfaces catch the sun and break it into fragments of colour. Monumental yaksha guardians stand at entrances in fantastically detailed costumes, their faces fierce, their bodies covered in patterns that reward a closer look.

Within the complex is Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, regarded as one of Thailand’s most sacred Buddhist sites. What photographs struggle to communicate is the concentration of detail across the palace grounds. A wide shot captures the scale and loses the craftsmanship; move closer and another world appears in the tiles, painted figures, floral offerings and ornamentation.

From the Grand Palace we moved to Wat Pho, then towards the Chao Phraya River. Seen from a local boat, Bangkok rearranges itself. Temple roofs and towers rise above the riverbanks, ferries move briskly across the water and the dense city opens sufficiently to reveal another perspective. At one point, an enormous golden Buddha rises above the buildings beside the water, impossible to miss even from a distance. We crossed towards Wat Arun, whose distinctive prang dominates this stretch of the river.

There was a tuk-tuk ride too, which required considerably less contemplation. Bangkok’s three-wheeled taxis are small, open to the city and impossible to separate from the noise and movement around them. Sitting in the back, watching traffic and shopfronts slide past at close range, was as much part of seeing Bangkok as arriving at the next landmark.

After lunch at ICONSIAM, the pace changed at Sindhorn Kempinski Hotel Bangkok, where our afternoon was devoted to wellness. The hotel’s soaring green interiors provided a cooling change after the heat outside, and its wellness centre offered a choice of treatments, including traditional Thai massage. I decided to skip the massage and enjoy the hotel room instead, a few unscheduled hours of doing very little that felt particularly welcome in the middle of a packed itinerary.

That evening, another familiar piece of Asian culture appeared in a form I had never seen before. High above Bangkok, Akara Sky Hanuman unfolds across three levels of One City Centre, with mirrored spaces, lights, Thai imagery and the skyline visible beyond. Its Hanuman Sky Bar provided the setting for a live traditional dance performance.

Growing up in India, Hanuman was immediately familiar to me. The Thai interpretation was not. Thailand’s version of the Ramayana, the Ramakien, has developed within the country’s own artistic and performance traditions, and its Hanuman has a distinctly Thai visual and narrative identity. Watching the dancers perform inside the bar made that cultural connection far more immediate than reading about it could have done. The character was recognisable, the costumes and movements belonged unmistakably to Thailand, and a story I had known since childhood suddenly looked different.

The surroundings were also irresistible to the digital creators travelling with us, which was how I acquired another role on this trip. “Can you take a video?” Of course. Then another. And, on occasion, a third. I discovered that the apparently spontaneous travel video involves more precision than viewers might imagine. Walk here. Start again. Hold the phone this way. Wait until nobody walks behind. Try once more. As a journalist among influencers, I became an occasional camerawoman. I can now watch a perfectly effortless ten-second travel reel with considerably greater appreciation for the person standing outside the frame.

Into Khao Yai

The next morning we left Bangkok and drove towards Khao Yai, stopping for lunch at a local restaurant before checking into Thames Valley Khao Yai. The transformation in scenery had been gradual. Bangkok’s density loosened as we travelled, buildings became less insistent and green began to dominate the view. By the time we reached Khao Yai, the capital felt much farther away than the drive suggested.

Thames Valley adds its own geographical confusion. The property borrows heavily from the English countryside, with stone façades, pitched roofs, climbing greenery, gardens and pathways that would look more immediately at home in rural England.

Thames Mansion takes that idea further. Large and imposing within the landscaped grounds, the mansion has the proportions of a private country house and forms one of the most striking parts of the property. The effect of seeing this English architectural fantasy surrounded by Khao Yai’s tropical landscape is unusual enough to make you look twice.

I did eventually surrender to a traditional Thai massage, this time at Thames Valley. After several days of walking through Bangkok, temples and Khao Yai, the timing could hardly have been better.

Later that evening, we had dinner at the Castle Restaurant and Tea Room at Thames Valley, bringing our first day in Khao Yai to a leisurely close. The following day, however, brought us firmly back into the landscape we had travelled here to see.

Art inside a forest

Khao Yai Art Forest does not reveal itself in the manner of a conventional gallery. There is no succession of rooms directing you from one work to another. The forest provides the exhibition space, and visitors follow trails through the trees until the artworks appear.

Richard Long’s Madrid Circle, created from stones arranged in a large, precise ring, seems both deliberate and completely at ease on the forest floor. Elsewhere, Pilgrimage to Eternity places nine sculptural forms through the landscape, drawing on Thai pagoda-making traditions.

Then there is K-BAR by Elmgreen & Dragset, perhaps the most unexpected sight of the walk: an actual bar standing among the trees. Designed to open only occasionally at dusk, it looks almost surreal when encountered in daylight, its familiar urban form displaced into woodland.

My most memorable encounter required closer physical participation. At Pulsus Vitae, an installation by artist duo Scenocosme, the instruction was to place an ear against a tree. I did. With my cheek pressed against the trunk, I could hear and feel a pulse resembling a heartbeat.

For a few moments, listening to a tree in the middle of a Thai forest seemed an entirely reasonable thing to be doing.

The forest setting lends a sense of space to the works, and changes the viewing experience. You walk, search, stop and continue. Art is glimpsed through foliage before it is seen properly. The journey between works becomes part of the visit.

Lunch continued in the same setting, with food served in beautiful ceramics at Bamboo restaurant and handwritten welcome messages presented on leaves.

Later came homemade ice cream and one of the more eccentric desserts I encountered on the trip. Mine was called Large-tailed Nightjar, after the bird. The elaborate combination included cheese, yuzu, chocolate and brownie, ingredients I would never have thought to assemble into a single ice cream. Somehow, in Khao Yai, eating a dessert named after a nocturnal bird after spending the morning listening to a tree’s heartbeat felt perfectly consistent.

Into the wild

Our final day began with the drive through Khao Yai National Park.

The landscape changed again as dense forest closed around the road. This time there was wildlife to watch for. Deer appeared close enough to photograph, and a macaque beside the road immediately had everyone reaching for phones.

Khao Yai is part of the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and its forests support an extraordinary range of wildlife. The animals we encountered were only brief glimpses of that larger ecosystem, though seeing them beside the road gave the drive an unpredictability that no scheduled stop could provide.

We continued to Haew Suwat Waterfall, where water drops over a broad wall of dark rock into the forest below. After the elaborate architecture of Bangkok, the carefully planted gardens of Thames Valley and the artworks placed through Khao Yai’s forest, there was something compelling about standing before a landscape whose scale needed no embellishment.

Water disappeared into vegetation beneath us, forest stretched beyond it, and the humidity hung in the air. It was one of the strongest visual memories I carried away from Khao Yai. Then we headed back to Bangkok. There was, however one important stop left.

Lost in Chatuchak

Our final day happened to be a Sunday, which meant Chatuchak Weekend Market was in full swing. I could have spent two days there.

This is not an exaggeration. Chatuchak sprawls across roughly 1.13 square kilometres and contains more than 15,000 shops and stalls divided across sections selling fashion, vintage goods, art, interiors, books, plants, food and almost everything else a determined shopper could convince herself she needs.

The scale becomes apparent only once you are inside. Narrow lanes lead into other lanes. Clothes hang overhead and spill from stalls. Jewellery, bags, handicrafts, ceramics, home accessories and souvenirs compete for attention. Turn a corner and the merchandise changes again.

Then I found the Goth jewellery.

As a lifelong rock and metal fan, this was where any remaining discipline disappeared. Skulls, crosses, heavy silver-toned rings, chains, pendants and darker, more elaborate pieces filled the displays, and I went a little mad. This was exactly my kind of jewellery, and suddenly the problem with Chatuchak was no longer deciding whether I wanted to buy something. It was deciding what I could possibly leave behind.

This was shopping without the polished predictability of a mall. You had to look properly. There was always the possibility that the next stall would contain something better than the one you had just left, which is precisely how a quick visit becomes an extended negotiation with time.

Our schedule eventually won. A foot massage later that afternoon was probably the most sensible possible conclusion after days of walking through palaces, temples, forests and markets.

By evening we were back at Don Mueang for the 11.55pm flight to Dubai. Nana was still with us, smiling as she had from the moment we arrived. She had somehow kept a group of journalists and content creators on schedule through five days of photographs, shopping, videos and inevitable distractions.

Back home, my photographs captured Thailand in fragments: the gold and mosaic of the Grand Palace, rain on Arab Street, a giant golden Buddha above the Chao Phraya and Hanuman dancing high above Bangkok. Then came Khao Yai: art among the trees, a deer and a pig-tailed macaque beside a forest road, Haew Suwat tumbling over dark rock, before one final burst of Bangkok at Chatuchak.

Five days had taken us through several versions of the country. I could easily have given Chatuchak another two. And Khao Yai another few as well.