If Bangkok seems to lack order, it is because it never has had order, save for the royal core of the city, Rattanakosin, where the kings built their palaces. Moving outwards from this artificial island, defined by the Chao Phraya River and canals, the city becomes increasingly less and less organized.

Bangkok began as a city of canals and elephant paths ; when motor vehicles redefined urban transportation, the old paths were simply paved over for the new wheels. Chaos in construction began in earnest during the late 1950s, and a large part o what assaults the eye today started then – the lofty office buildings, the air-conditioned supermarkets and shopping centers, nearly all the broad streets and international hotels, the endless blocks of row shops following what one critic called the “egg-crate principle of desing.” Before this boom, the now-fashionable residential streets on either side of Sukhumvit Road and Phaholyothin Road were rice paddies.

Yet despite the boom, large areas around the old Grand Palace, the Chinese district, and across the river in Thonburi (now included in the Greater Bangkok Metropolitan Area) were, for the time, hardly touched by the building fever. But the pause was momentary. New construction in Chinatown is replacing the squat buildings with towering glass ones.

Today, about one out of every eight Thais live in Bangkok and like many cities at a similar stage of development, it in no way represents the country as a whole. It is a distinct entity unto itself.

Bangkok began its life on the banks of the Cho Phya River, the “River of Kings.” Though the city is some 400 years old, it became the nation’s capital only in 1782 when the royal dynasty which now rules Thailand was established. The first king, Rama I (1782-1809) ordered a canal to be dug across the neck of an oxbow in the river, thereby creating an island which could be easily defended against attackers.

Bangkok’s first major building was Wat Phra Kaeo, or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the holiest Buddha image in the realm. Wat Phra Kaeo, which adjoins the Grand Palace, is a complex of sacred buildings erected over the course of Bangkok’s first century in a seemingly random pattern and variety of styles. Walking through it, one’s eyes are assaulted by twinkling pinpoints of sunlight reflected in hundreds of thousands of tiny colored mirrors that cover every jewel-like surface of the temple.

At the center of the com;lex is the bot or “ordination hall” that holds the Emerald Buddha. Gilded garudas (mythical irds) line its ramparts while singhas (mythical lions) protect the stairs and ferocious guardians carved on the doors see to it that evil spirits do not enter. The image they guard is rather small. Seated high on an 11-meter-tall (36-ft) gilded alter, it is made of jasper and is clothed in the raiment of the season.

North of the bot are the Prasat Phra Thep Bidom (or Royal Pantheon) holding the ashes of past kings and important royal personages; the library (mondop), repository for the Buddhist scriptures; and a tall golden mosaictied spire with a summit clad in dazzling pure gold.

Surrounding the complex is a portico whose walls are covered with episodes from the thai version of the Indian epic the Ramakien, the story of the god-king Rama which is the principal work of Thai dance-drama, literature and puppet theater, and whose name the present dynasty’s kings have assumed. The murals were originally painted during the reign of Rama III (1824-1850) and have been restored several times.

The Grand Palace also evolved piecemeal, beginning in 1789 with the Dusit Maha Prasad, which sits on the west of the great courtyard. In front of it is perhaps the most charming structure, the jewel box0like Aphon Phimok pavilion where kings once dismounted from their royal elephants.

The most impressive buiding, the Chakri Maha Prasad, was in fact the last to be built. It sits at the center of the complex, fronted by a garden of sculpted trees. Built as a royal residence and audience hall in 1890, the lower part of it was designed by British architect. The original blueprints called for a rather plain roofline but, sensitive to Thai aesthetic sensibilities, King Chulalongkorn ordered that three spires crown it. To the left of the Chakri Maha Prasad, a door leads to the forbidden quarters, an area where the king’s many wives used to live. North of the women’s quarters lies Borom Phiman Hall, to the east of the doorway lies the Amarin Vinichai Hall a former harem and one of the palace’s few remaining original buildings. Today , the Grand Palace is only used for state banquets and other royal ceremonies.

The grounds of the palace, open to visitors who are dressed properly, occupy part of a larger compound that also includes the royal chapel, the Royal Collection of Weapons, the Coin Pavilion and a small museum containing artifacts from the Grand Palace. A stroll south of the Grand Palace leads to Wat Phra Chettupon (Temple of the Reclining Buddha) or, as it is popularly known, Wat Po. This is the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok and is divided into two sections by the narrow Chettuphon Rosd, one containing the living quarters of 300 resident monks and the other, a variety of religious buildings.

Few statues in Bangkok are more impressive than Wat Po’s mammoth Reclining Buddha which occupies the entirety of a long building in the northwestern corner. Regarded less for its artistic merit than its awesome size, the soles of the enormous image’s feet are covered in 108 intricate mother-of-pearl signs by which a living Buddha can be recognized. Wat Po is also a center of herbal and traditional medicine.

Cross the street northeast of Wat Phra Kaew to Lak Muang which houses a tal lingam dedicated to Shiva and demarcates the official center of the city Here, devotees come th make wishes or to repay the spirits for wishes granted by hiring the resident lakhon dance-drama troupe to perform a small piece.