Human geography Bangkok is mad, scary, exciting, polluted and charming all at the same time. It has a huge number of people because lots of people come in from rural areas hoping to find work. It took me a while to get used to the chaos, but once I learnt to go with it I had a really good time. The Chao Phraya river runs through the city and I found the barges the best way to get around. The roads seemed to be permanently jammed. Bangkok is full of over 400 temples or wats. A lot of them have statues of Buddha including a small but beautiful crystal one, a 3 metre tall solid gold one and one lying down which is over 47 metres long! Ayuthaya was once the capital of Thailand and I saw ruins there which are absolutely amazing. They date from the 14th to the 18th century. The biggest Buddha is 19 metres tall and there is also a 1300 year old Buddha made of jade. I then took the 'death railway' to the site of the Bridge over the river Kwai where thousands of allied soldiers and Thais were killed by the Japanese. I was lucky enough to see the Elephant Roundup festival whilst I was in Thailand, you can't imagine how many elephants there were! I also watched people float candles in the river during the Loi Krathong festival to give them good luck for the next year. Thai is a really tricky language to learn and some words have 5 meanings depending on how you say them! Luckily I found that lots of people spoke English as well. 75% of the people in Thailand are Thai but there are also Chinese, Malay and several minorities. Most people are Buddhist although there are a few Muslims, mainly around the coast. Thais take religion seriously and everywhere I turned I saw young Buddhist monks dressed in bright orange robes and statues of Buddha. I even spent a few days in a temple learning how to meditate - thinking of nothing is harder than it seems. Thailand used to make most money from agriculture and a lot of people still farm for a living. I visited a coconut farm on Ko Samui island and drank loads of the milk from inside the coconuts. Thais also use a lot of coconut in cooking and the food is great - hot, spicy and full of flavour. There are also other fruits including papaya, jackfruit, mangos, pomelos and durians, which smell so disgusting that they are banned from most hotels! Today Thailand makes about £5 million from the 8 million tourists who visit each year. Lots of people work in the tourist industry or in banking, communications or transport. Thailand sells minerals and jewellery, oil and gas, cement, electronics and sugar, and many some people work in these industries.