Are private guides recommended/advised for Bangkok or Angkor Wat? If so, how do we find and contact them?

I can highly recommend Tan as a guide for BKK. We got the recommendation from this forum and she was great. We spent most of the time in BKK on our own, but found her very helpful for visiting the Grand Palace, Wat Po and other sites to give us history and an understanding of Buddhism and other cultural aspects of Thailand. She was fun to be around, spoke excellent English, and was very knowledgeable. Also very reasonable in price. We're still in contact with her -- she recently sent some family photos. Her e-mail address is [email protected]. If you contact her tell her that Carole & Rob from Connecticut say hello.

a driver who is not a registered guide but many of us have used her is rat in bkk...her address is
[email protected]

she is excellent and unless you want very detailed historical type guiding, she would be perfect....

many have used a woman in siem reap whose name begins with P...do a search for angkor wat guides here and i am sure her name will come up

Bob-- did you use Ratt at all this trip? If so, how is she?

I totally agree with Rhkkmk! We found in this forum the name and address of Ratt, and we had her as our driver. We were more than happy with her! She was very helpful, she is a very nice person. We got a lot of information from her. At Grand Palace and in another places, if you want, she will find there a good guide.
She has for us cold towels, umbrelas, very cold water. She was alwyas in time, did not try to take us for shopping if we did not ask for.

We stayed with her two full days, and this was very convenient, helping us to see as much as we could in a short tyime and in very good conditions.

I had Ratt for several days the last time I was in Bangkok and I plan to use her again. She is terrific. Not a guide but gives a lot of information and is a wonderful person.