Welcome to Bangkok; one of the most cosmopolitan, contrasting and, above all, compelling of Asian cities. A steamy, pulsating, yet smiling metropolis of more than ten million. Come find your niche among dazzling temples, eclectic markets, gleaming palaces, ritzy shopping malls, a famous nightlife and the many things in between. Enjoy a memorable dinner cruise adrift the Chao Phraya River. Bask in the city’s warm, affluent glow at a skyscraping rooftop bar. Experience all the things – tuk-tuk ride, ladyboy show, Muay Thai (kickboxing) match and Thai massage

According to many European old maps, the river is named as Menam or Mae Nam, the Thai word for river (Me or Mae is "Mother", Nam is "Water"). The name Chao Phraya is a Thai feudal title, which can be translated as "Grand Duke". In the English-language media in Thailand the name is often translated as River of Kings.Current research found that the term Chao Phraya did not appear in any historical sources until later in the Rattanakosin era. This supports the argument that the river was originally known to the locals as Menam as recorded in Thai and European sources before 19th Century.

The landscape of the river basins is a very wide, flat, well-watered plain continuously refreshed with soil and sediment brought down by the rivers. The Lower Central plain from the delta north to Ang Thong Province is a flat, low area with an average of 2m above sea level. Further north and into the plains of the Ping and the Nan the elevation is over 20m. Then the mountains that are the natural boundary of the Chao Praya watershed form a divide, which has, to some degree, historically isolated Thailand from other Southeast Asian civilizations.

In fact in northern Thailand the divide roughly corresponds to a long section of the political border of the country today. Southern portions of the divide's boundary correspond less to the nation's political border, because isolation in this area was prevented by the ease of transportation along the lowlands surrounding the Gulf of Thailand, allowing a unified Thai civilization to extend beyond the watershed without issue. The slightly higher northern plains have been farmed for centuries and saw a major change from the 13th century onwards during the Sukhothai Kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries and the Ayutthaya Kingdom that succeeded it when rice-growing intensified with the introduction of floating rice, a much faster-growing strain of rice from Bengal. The southern swamps meanwhile changed radically from the 18th century when King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke moved the capital of Siam to Bangkok, and a process of canalisation and cultivation began, especially as Thailand began to export rice from 1855 onwards.