One-hour tours show little canal life as they include Wat Arun and the Royal Barge Museum. So take two or more hours (start from B500/hr) to loop through...

This characterful Chinese shrine to a tiger god image is guarded by two further golden tigers, with vendors selling tiger-appeasing offerings such as pork,...

Designed by Italian sculptor Corrado Feroci (founder of Silpakorn University; p59), this memorial to the 1932 end of absolutism pointedly sits in a traffic...

Standing in City Hall square, the Giant Swing (Sao Ching Cha) was originally erected in 1784 as part of the adjacent Devasathan, a Brahmin compound of...

Assembled from canal diggings, the Golden Mount (Phu Khao Thong) was intended by Rama III to be clad as a giant chedi. Proving unstable, the rubble was...

Bangkok's paramount must-see sight is this architectural and spiritual treasure, which is twice as dazzling if you see it on a sunny day. Ignore the gem...

This tree-shaded former moat is lined with timber lamp-posts shaped like old city wall posts and offers a tranquil stroll. The western bank, Thanon...

The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) occupies the austere modernist City Hall facing the Giant Swing. In the piazza stands a bus-length sign bearing the...

Thais believe the guardian spirits of a Thai town reside at its foundation pillar. Bangkok's birth thus dates from the auspicious time on 22 April 1782 when...

Buried in lanes within the block where the timber merchant street Thanon Boriphat meets Thanon Bumrung Muang, Descendants of Ayutthayan refugees maintain...

In former prison buildings on the site of this park a small penal museum displays instruments of punishment. Amid the gardens' ponds, fountains and a large...

Fringed by tamarind trees, this large oval lawn is one of the city's few truly open spaces. Here elaborate pyres are constructed to resemble sacred Mount...

This former garden of Saranrom Palace, which is currently being rebuilt, has been open to the public since the 1960s and, like all Thai parks, is liveliest...

The country's second most prestigious university (after Chulalongkorn) dates from 1932. A statue of its founder, statesman Pridi Bhanomyong, sits in front...