Bangkok, for anyone who has been to this great city will know, is a place of contrasts. Between rich and poor, modern and ancient, fast and furious, languid and lazy. It can be sizzling hot or drowning in wet-season rain. The traffic can be snarling and hostile, but the people are some of the friendliest you will meet anywhere in the world.

The official name for the city is ‘ Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit’– most Thais refer to it as Krungthep Maha Nakhon – or just Krung Thep. – the phonetic spelling is ‘Kroo-ng Tayp’.

There is debate as to where the city starts and finishes, and therefore the population could be somewhere between 10 and 25 million, many of whom are internal migrants from other provinces. What is not up for debate is that the city continues to grow, swallowing up land on the fringes.