Let Secret Bangkok guide you around the unusual and unfamiliar. Step off the beaten track with this fascinating Bangkok guide book and let our local experts show you the well-hidden treasures of this amazing city. Ideal for local inhabitants, curious visitors and armchair travellers alike. Only in a city with as much to offer as Thailand's City of Angels could a temple boasting a million Buddhas have remained overlooked by visitors. Bangkok is regularly listed as the number one city destination in the world yet take time to scratch just a little below the surface and you'll find stunning and intriguing (and sometimes downright bizarre) spots that remain virtually unknown to outsiders ... and often to the citizens themselves. Frequent residents Narina Exelby and Mark Eveleigh spent over a year hunting down some of the city's most captivating secret spots - many of which even experienced local guides had never heard of. This book will lead you to the place where people offer bacon and eggs to tiger temple guardians, and a temple with elaborate effigies of David Beckham, Donald Duck and Popeye. It will take you into the lair of giant monitor lizards, show you how to gain merit by sponsoring a coffin, or how to decipher, from a tree trunk, the winning lottery numbers offered by a beautiful female ghost. You'll also meet a unique community of outlaw flute-players, eat a communal vegetarian breakfast with Bangkok's Sikh community, learn about the traditional Thai pastime of "baldy-butting", and meet a celebrated "healer" who goes by the name of Madame Breast-slapper.Secret Bangkok is more than just an indispensable guide to the hidden face of the city: it is written also to offer fascinating background information for those who love to connect with the soul of a place.

Let Secret Bali guide you around the unusual and unfamiliar. Step off the beaten track with this fascinating Bali guide book and let our local experts show you the well-hidden treasures of this amazing city. Ideal for local inhabitants, curious visitors and armchair travellers alike. Black sand that has healing power, why you should not whistle while strolling down a beach at night, Bali's most beautiful and least-visited rice terraces, a very special gift to take home from Bali, a workshop where Batiks are created with unique natural dyes, a place to petition the spirits for a baby, the flute-playing pigeons of Ubud, an enchanting village of traditionally styled bamboo roofs, a haunting reunion of some of Bali's most outrageous demons, one of the world's best unofficial street art exhibitions, a tree it is impossible to plant, an ancient fertility statue with "more than the usual quota of penises", a mysterious breed of cattle, a village of the deaf, a miniature version of Java's Unesco-listed Borobudur, fantastic tranced bull races, the world's most spectacular traditional fishing craft, an architectural wonder of Bali's Christian heartland, Bali's only colonial-era rubber plantation ... Bali offers countless opportunities to step off the beaten path and is home to any number of well-hidden treasures that are revealed only to residents and travellers who are ready to explore. Secret Bali - An unusual guide is an indispensable resource for those who think they already know Bali or would like to discover its hidden places, taking you far from the crowds and the usual cliches.