Bangkok is known as the City of Angels, but is seems that the city is more chaos than anything else, a place where serenity and peace can be only be found in select, hidden locales, where the traffic jams and the rumble of new construction dominate over the incessant chatter of Thai street vendors and peddlers. Indeed, the city might be more of your taste if you do not mind the colors, the grit, grime, and the smog. If you do, you better go back to your four-star hotel room.

Bangkok is the capital and largest city in Thailand, a sprawling metropolis of steel and concrete, towering high-rises overlooking the squalor of the slums that sits on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. Bangkok stretches out to cover 32 miles in all directions, and this vastness makes the city a one-stop destination for shopping establishments, modern comforts all within easy reach of Thailand's historical sites and stunning tourist hot spots.

The city can offer you everything in extreme: four star hotels with gourmet restaurants within walking distance of nearby street food markets, frenetic and chaotic marketplaces right next to serene and quiet Buddhist temples, and saffron-robed monks walking next to cell phone-toting yuppies. Bangkok is both young and old, its rich culture evident in the intricate designs of the Grand Palace and the Erawan Shrine, while the shiny new face of modernity peers behind the countless ads and Billboards of everything from Coke to Starbucks.