Khaosan Road

A backpacker legend in the old city. Khaosan Road is a short, densely packed street in the Banglamphu quarter of Bangkok's historic Phra Nakhon district, a few minutes' walk from the Grand Palace and the Chao Phraya River. Its name means "milled rice," a nod to the wholesale rice trade that once filled the lane before travellers took over in the 1980s.

A round-the-clock sensory overload. By day the street sells cheap guesthouse beds, tailored clothes, travel tickets and fake student cards; by night it becomes a neon corridor of bars, buckets of mixed drinks, tattoo studios and stalls hawking pad thai, mango sticky rice, grilled squid and, for the daring, fried insects. Music from competing venues overlaps into a single wall of sound.

A staging post for a generation. For decades Khaosan served as the first landing pad for shoestring travellers crossing Southeast Asia, and it earned wider fame as a setting in Alex Garland's novel and film "The Beach." It remains a crossroads where long-haul backpackers, Thai students and curious day-trippers mingle over cheap beer and street food.

Practical notes for a visit. The strip and its quieter parallel lane, Soi Rambuttri, are best explored on foot in the cooler evening hours; there is no rail station at the door, so most arrive by taxi, riverboat to Phra Athit pier, or on foot from Rattanakosin's temples. During the Songkran new-year festival in April the road becomes one of the city's wildest water-fight zones. Cheap massage shops, second-hand bookstalls and tour desks fill the gaps between the bars, while buskers and street artists work the pavement late into the night. Prices are low, the atmosphere is frenetic, and a stroll here pairs naturally with the nearby royal temples.