More than any other place in Thailand, Bangkok offers wonderful opportunities for just sitting and watching people go by. Here's a partial checklist:

• University student — Many of Thailand's universities continue to enforce a uniform, and what a uniform: for girls, it's a formfitting translucent white blouse, black miniskirt and straight black hair. The little shiny logo button on the blouse tells the cognoscenti which particular university she is attending. Boys wear a white dress shirt and black trousers, but ever the non-conformists, you'll never see one outside school without the shirt pulled out and a few too many buttons open.

• Office lady — Sharply clad in infinite variations of solid pastel shades, this human houseplant mans customer service desks and pours tea in offices across the capital.

• Bargirl — Mostly short and dark-skinned farm girls from the provinces, a bargirl can be spotted a mile away thanks to her pink hotpants and the kilo of gold around her neck. Often found in happy financial symbiosis with the sexpat.

• Sexpat — Fifty-plus, bald, beer belly, stained shirt, lovestruck expression and a hairy arm wrapped around a girl too young to be their daughter. They've found what they're looking for.

• Ladyboy (kathoey) — Either tall, large-handed, wears too much makeup, possesses an Adam's apple and has large breasts... or has accomplished the art of camouflage so well that you just filed her/him as an office lady or bargirl.

• Expat — A farang walking about purposefully in dress shirt and long trousers, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it's 35°C outside. For extra credit, try to distinguish between the scruffier English teacher type and the jet-setting expense package type. Or try classifying them by the old joke about the three types of expat — missionaries, mercenaries and misfits.

• Yuppie — Like every other big city, Bangkok boasts a coterie of young professional types who are hip, well-educated and relatively affluent. Similar to the Expat, they usually sport business attire and are likely to be hurried -- except they probably know a shortcut, and they aren't sweating so profusely.

• Khao San Road brigade — Braided hair, bead necklace, sarongs, shorts and floppy pants. Either on their way to or just back from the beaches. Dazed and bewildered when torn apart from the familiar surroundings of Khao San Road.

Most of Bangkok's sights are concentrated in the "Old City" on Rattanakosin Island. Out of Bangkok's many temples, the following usually make the top 3:

• Wat Arun (The Temple of Dawn)
• The Grand Palace, featuring Wat Phra Kaew (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha)
• Wat Pho, home of the world's largest reclining Buddha and a famed massage school

Bangkok's many markets are an experience in themselves, see Buy for some suggestions.

• For those who don't want to cycle alone dutch expat Co van Kessel organizes highly recommended all inclusive half day cycling tours for 950 bath. Co van Kessel Bangkok tours, ? Office: 02 - 322 9481 or: 02 - 752 6818 - 9 Mr. Co's mobile: 0 87 - 824 1931 Miss Nong's mobile: 0 87 - 054 9878 (covankessel@yahoo.com), [14]. 950 Bath.

Bangkok is an extremely popular place for all sorts of pampering. The options available range from massages and spa treatments to haircuts and manicures and even cosmetic surgery, all at prices far lower than in the West.

• All self-respecting hotels in Bangkok will have a spa operating on premises offering at least traditional massage services. These tend to charge a premium but also offer some the best treatments in town. Particularly well-regarded spas include Deverana [15] at the Dusit Thani and the eponymous operations at Banyan Tree [16] and the legendary Oriental [17] — the last of these being probably the most expensive in town, offering (among other things) a 6-hour Oriental Romance package for two costing a whopping US$535.

• Independent spas offer much the same experience but are a little more competitive due to the lack of a captive customer base. Figure on 1000 baht and up per hour for most treatments.

• The ubiquitous little massage shops found on every street corner in town offer the best value for money but the smallest range of services, with offerings usually limited to massage only. It is fairly easy to distinguish legitimate massage shops from more dubious places: the real deal will charge 250-400 baht for a typical two-hour massage and will often have a row of beefy farmers' daughters in white coats working on customers' feet in public view, while the other kind has wispy things in evening dresses and too much makeup yelling "hello handsome" at every passing male.

• Bangkok's hospitals offer generally high quality services at a fraction of the cost of a Western hospital. Probably the best-regarded (and most expensive) is Bumrungrad [18], which (for example) charges 60,000 baht for an all-inclusive breast implant package. Bangkok is also well known as a center for sexual reassignment surgery for people wishing to change their physical gender, although this falls out of the scope of a casual vacation

• A cruise down the Chao Praya River is a nice way to spend a day here in Bangkok. A tour called Five Temples, Five Era Chao Praya River Cruise [19] offer by Truly Yours Tour [20] will take you to explore the history of Thai temples around the river each last Sunday of the Month. The tour mainly visite 5 temples and explain the historical significant by a lecturer.

• Golf - see Golf in Thailand - Bangkok

• Phad Thai and curry shops everywhere
• Tom Yum Goong, don't miss to try one of the most famous soup
• Street vendors selling satay with hot sauce (for 5-10 baht a piece)
• Bugs - yes, insects. They are deep fried, nutritious and quite tasty with the soy sauce that is sprayed on them. Types available: scorpions, water beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, bamboo larvae, mealworms, and some more seasonal specialties. Note: break off the legs from grasshoppers and crickets or they will get stuck in your throat.
• Chinatown has a range of street stalls and cheap restaurants selling food (try 1kg of huge barbecued prawns or tom yam with prawns for 300 baht) to the discerning local population
• All the Thai restaurant chains covered in the main Thailand article
• Restaurants featuring cuisine from all over the world on Sukhumvit Road and Khao San Road