"Thailand" a Thailand Travel Page by traveldave

I was able to travel to Thailand, and stay in one of the world's best hotels, due to the financial troubles experienced by the Asian countries in the late 1990s. The "Asian Tigers" went through an economic boom in the early 1990s the likes of which have not been seen recently. However, the boom did not last and the Asian economies collapsed, including that of Thailand. Hotels that were formerly full of Asian tourists and businessmen suddenly found themselves nearly empty. Therefore, hotels and airlines worked together to offer unbelievably low-priced packages that made travel to Asia suddenly very affordable, especially from North America. I purchased a package that included airfare and hotel that cost less than a plane ticket to Bangkok would normally cost. I had had no expectation of traveling to Asia for quite a while due to the prohibitive cost, but because of the poor economy, I found myself in Thailand much sooner than I would have thought possible.

I stayed for a week in the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok, which was a good base from which to explore that exotic city, as well as take a couple of day trips to the nearby ruined city of Ayutthaya, and the Bridge on the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi.

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