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1767, the kingdom fractured into competing forces, from which General Taksin emerged as a decisive unifier. He established his base in Thonburi, on the western bank of Mae Nam Chao Phraya (Chao Phraya River), a convenient location for sea trade from the Gulf of Thailand. Taksin proved more of a military strategist than a popular ruler. He was later deposed by another important military general, Chao Phraya Chakri, who moved the capital across the river in 1782 to a more defensible location in anticipation of a Burmese attack. The succession of his son in 1809 established the present-day dynasty, and Chao Phraya Chakri is referred to as Rama I.

Court officials envisioned the new capital as a resurrected Ayuthaya, complete with an island district (Ko Ratanakosin) carved out of the swampland and cradling the royal court (the Grand Palace) and a temple to the auspicious Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew). The emerging city, which was encircled by a thick wall, was filled with stilt and floating houses ideally adapted to seasonal flooding.

Modernity came to the capital in the late 19th century as European aesthetics and technologies filtered east. During the reigns of Rama IV (King Mongkut) and Rama V (King Chulalongkorn), Bangkok received its first paved road (Th Charoen Krung) and a new royal district (Dusit) styled after European palaces.

Bangkok was still a gangly town when soldiers from the American war in Vietnam came to rest and relax in the city’s go-go bars and brothels. It wasn’t until the boom years of the 1980s and ’90s that Bangkok exploded into a fully fledged metropolis crowded with hulking skyscrapers and an endless spill of concrete that gobbled up rice paddies and green space. The city’s extravagant tastes were soon tamed by the 1997 economic meltdown, the effects of which can still be seen a decade later in the numerous half-built skyscrapers.

In recent years Bangkok has yet again started to redefine itself, and projects such as the Skytrain and Metro have begun to address the city’s notorious traffic problems, while simultaneously providing the city with a modern face. A spate of giant air-conditioned mega-malls has some parts of the city looking a lot like Singapore, and it’s only a matter of time before Bangkok’s modernisation reaches the level of other leading Asian capitals.

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ORIENTATION

Occupying the east side of Mae Nam Chao Phraya, Bangkok proper can be divided in two by the main north–south railway terminating at Hualamphong train station.

The portion between the serpentine river and the railway is old Bangkok, a district of holy temples, crowded markets and family-owned shophouses. Swarming either side of the train station is the dense neighbourhood of Chinatown, a frenzy of red, gold and neon. Chinatown’s chaos is subdued by Ko Ratanakosin, the former royal enclave and Bangkok’s most popular tourist district. Charming Banglamphu and the backpacker strip of Th Khao San (Khao San Rd) are north up the river. Crowning the old city is Dusit, a planned homage to the great European capitals, and the easy-going neighbourhood of Thewet.

East of the railway is new Bangkok, a modern Asian city with little charm. Around Siam Square is a universe of boxy shopping centres that attracts fashion-savvy Thai teenagers and shopping-holiday tourists. Th Sukhumvit runs a deliberate course from the geographic city centre to the Gulf of Thailand, and has limblike tributaries reaching into corporate-expat cocoons and the girly-bar scene at Soi Cowboy and Nana Entertainment Plaza.

Bangkok’s financial district centres along Th Silom, which cuts an incision from the river to Lumphini Park. Intersecting Th Silom near the river is Th Charoen Krung, Bangkok’s first paved road that was once the artery for the city’s mercantile shipping interests. Its narrow sois (lanes) branch off through the old fa·ràng (foreigners of European descent) quarters that are littered with decaying Victorian monuments, churches and the famous Oriental Hotel. True to the city’s resistance to efficiency, there are