Why Thailand is the World’s Most Beautiful Country (Video)

horse statue bangkok shopping mall
You’ll find this horse at Bangkok’s Siam Center mall. It’s around 9 feet tall and completely made out of small strips of wood. It’s beautiful.

 

I was at a Bangkok shopping mall on Friday and trying to explain to a Thai friend why I think Thailand is the world’s most beautiful country. After I’d given my explanation and finished with “Beauty is everywhere in Thailand. In gorgeous displays in the corridors of shopping malls, in statues on the street, in flowers in the strangest places and in the prettiest government office signs you’ve ever seen”, she looked at me a little strangely and said, “It’s normal”.

No, it’s not.

Thailand is the world’s most beautiful country and it’s all about the Thai way of living.

Thais love to be surrounded by beauty, so whether they have a beautiful ornately designed spirit house loaded down with garlands of tropical flowers right outside their front door, put up a lovely sign in curly Thai script and illustrate it with a painting of an elephant or a garuda, or decorate their shop with statues of chubby little girls with flowers in their hair — it’s all beautiful and in the most unexpected places.

Thailand is the world’s most beautiful country, it’s true. And, if you don’t believe me, look at the photographs I took at Siam Center shopping mall on Friday and then watch the video below them. Photographs of the most ordinary things that, in most other countries, would be grey, dull and boring. But, in Thailand, they are beautiful.

 

bird sculpture bangkok
Sculpture of a mother bird and its chicks — just sitting in the middle of a corridor next to the escalators at Bangkok’s Siam Center — it’s beautiful.
display in a bangkok shopping mall
A display of old-fashioned TV monitors showing nothing but pictures of turquoise and white stripes. Beautiful.
elephant in a shop window bangkok
Imagine the amount of work that goes into building and painting an elephant like this — just for the display of a Siam Center clothing store. In a few weeks, it will probably disappear, and something even more beautiful will take its place.