Thaindian News

Bangkok, July 29 (THAINDIAN NEWS) ‘Travel + Leisure Magazine’ recently gave Bangkok, Thailand their “Top City” award, despite the recent rioting in the streets of the city which sent tourists running for locations abroad. The award has left city officials both humbled and inspired.

At a recent news conference, Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra stated that the magazine gave the city a much needed morale booster and that it would perhaps help to make sure that the political protesters “behave themselves”. Thousands of international visitors had fled the city and hotels in the area became eerily silent after the political upheaval in the area caused tensions to build.

One person was killed and ten were wounded on Sunday when a grenade exploded in the middle of a Bangkok shopping area. The authorities would not say whether or not the attack was politically motivated.

“What we have in our hands is very precious,” stated Sukhumbhand. “We must prevent troubles and any more losses from happening in our beloved city. We should not damage it any further.”

The polling for the magazine’s ‘Top Ten Cities’ list was posted in the August issue of ‘Travel + Leisure’ but the votes were actually cast by readers between the months of December and March, and ended just before the chaos broke out in the battered city. Civil disorder broke out in Bangkok just after the magazine’s polling stopped, and lasted 10 weeks. It ended on May 19, with almost 90 killed, and 1400 injured.

The governor of Bangkok went to New York to obtain the award from the publishers of the magazine, and met with Mayor Bloomberg. He asked the mayor of New York for advice in how to pick up a city after such tragedy. “‘Bad things happened, but we must move forward. We can’t stop. We must keep up the morale.’ That’s what Mayor Bloomberg told me,”Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said.