You are staring at a crossroads of concourses, marveling at the synchronized workings of a massive airport terminal. Or maybe you're just scrutinizing the transfer of your bags, since there were a few fumbles while this new complex was ironing out the kinks. Built three years ago at a cost of four billion dollars, the high-tech hub was designed by a German-born architect whose name may elicit a yawn (nothing to do with his aesthetic; after all, he made a huge post-reunification splash in a Berlin square). The canopied roofs and other features of the airport's infrastructure lay claim to several superlatives—you know, the biggest this, the tallest that. The facility was inaugurated a week after the overthrow of a long-serving leader (his name made you think of Ol' Blue Eyes). In fact, alleged corruption during the construction phase helped lead to his downfall.

The official name of the capital city you are about to visit, which lies just north of a bight, contains more than sixty syllables. The bustle of myriad merchants hawking their colorful goods on its canals helps make it one the world's most touristed cities. To avoid the nightmarish traffic, you could explore the metropolis via subway or, better still, the new elevated trains. It's even more thrilling to cruise—at a ticket cost of less than a dollar—on one of the express boats that fly up and down the waterway (the 230-mile-long "royal river" is west of the main urban districts). If you've planned an unorthodox visit—a sex change operation, say—you're in the right place, and if you wish to attend a boxing match, plenty of them get staged here, but we aren't talking Marquess of Queensberry rules.

Come departure time, pause to admire the terminal's vibrant works of art reflecting the country's ancient glories. A magnificent towering throne of wood and gold leaf has a base covered with deities and celestial bodies as well as a five-tiered-roof whose spire sports banana blossoms and lotus clusters. It's not often you get the royal treatment at the airport…

Where are you, anyhow?

Enter To Win