...the iconic Rose Garden, a sort of Thai Disneyland for the first time traveler anxious to get thoroughly immersed in Thai culture. Like the trailer to a block buster movie, it highlights every nook and cranny of everyday traditional life. Situated in a seventy acre garden and supported by a cast of one hundred and twenty actors, it captures the imagination with bamboo piped mystical music and dancing where players in tenth century outfits show off their cryptic mesmerizing steps, and sword fighters without regard to sex bounce off each other's knees or shoulders in acrobatic martial art ninja fashion, and Thai boxers you have to watch closely because one distraction means either an elbow, a knee, or a wild slap kick can take them down instantly, and elephant riding not so adventurous as trekking through the mountains in Chiang Mai but with a properly angled shot no one would know the difference, and a cruise on a rice barge where else could you stretch out to relax, absorbing the sun, and a visit to the floating market in a long boat just reach out to pick some fruit or eat a three course meal in this aquatic traffic jam, and garland making in case you buy that Buddha souvenir statue that you properly want to show respect to, and fruit carving to give your Saturday afternoon picnics a cultured taste, and pottery making to introduce you to a new hobby, and silk processing just for fun, and weaving to get the foot pedal pictures, and paper umbrella painting with floral sweeps that would make any wall a conversation piece, and Thai cooking, hold your nose, shield your eyes, it is going to get spicy hot, and an orchid nursery, look close, pay attention, pick out the rare color seedlings to take home with you, and the herbal pavilion of traditional medicine buy the salts that will make your bath a massage, and a chance to try your hand at rice farming never mind the ox pulling the plow just watch your step they don't think before they poop, and the traditional Thai houses that include a spa and a reenactment of a Thai wedding, old folks regard the first, young bucks regard the second, you may be next. Or just stroll through the gardens and close your eyes and get taken away to never ever land in the bosom of hundreds of flower variety scents. It whets the first time traveler's desire to see the rest of the country.