Also known as the Marine Silk Road Museum, this institution contains a sunken ship more than 800 years old in an aquarium like setting.

UNESCO: Underwater Cultural Heritage

Travel on this canal for designer (and knockoff) shopping at Siam Square and visit the Jim Thompson House, the beautiful teak museum home of an American silk trader, and other central Bangkok sites such as the Bo Bae wholesale clothing market or the hip Thonglor neighbourhood, full of boutiques and cafes.

BBC: Exploring Bangkok��s canals

He began his collection, now housed in the Karakalpak Museum of Art in Nukus, near the ancient Silk Road, in the late 1960s.

BBC: Spying formerly forbidden art in Uzbekistan