Bangkok

Bangkok - darkometer rating : 1 - The great capital city of Thailand and a major mainstream tourist destination featuring lots of magnificent palatial oriental sights. But there are also some less well-known little dark tourism sights to discover here. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: of course you could argue that Bangkok as such can be a dark destination at times … alluding to the political unrest that can sometimes overshadow the otherwise busy and friendly economic powerhouse that this megalopolis is. In late 2008 protesters closed down the international airport for weeks, and a couple of years after that things got so seriously out of hand that the TV footage of the street protests and the heavy-handed police violence against it resembled that of a civil-war zone. When I visited in December 2008/January 2009 I was lucky that those airport protests had just ended and the airport reopened by the time I needed it to, but I've heard the stories of previous chaos … The violent troubles in the next wave of clashes between the 'yellows' (royalists) and 'reds' were obviously much more serious than that. For the traveller they meant not just inconvenience but tourists really had stay away from Bangkok altogether for safety. Normally, however, tourists don't notice much of the underlying political controversy – unless you go to rallying spots such as the Democracy Monument when there's another wave of unrest going on. Just don't. Stay informed, keep up to date, and move accordingly. Natural calamities such as the serious floods of 2011 can obviously affect travel too.