Bangkok's Grand Palace

The Attraction: If you can only see one place in Bangkok, the Grand Palace should be it. The Grand Palace is alive with history - the History of Thailand. The art is beautiful. The tours are well organized. The place is a "must."

Size: The Grand Palace covers an area of about 60 acres. Within the palace grounds are government offices, the Emerald Buddha wat, and the royal residences.

The Emerald Buddha: The "Emerald Buddha" was actually carved from a large block of jade. It is a focus of national religious pride, and thousands of Thai citizens come each year to pay their respects to the memory of Buddha. The Emerald Buddha is the most revered image in Thailand.

Outer Palace: The palace compound can be divided into three sections: the Outer Palace, the Middle Palace, and the Inner Palace. The Outer Palace includes the Royal Temple (Wat Phra Kaeo) and some administrative offices. Wat Phra Kaeo has no resident monks. But it is one of the richest artistic sites in Thailand. It houses the Emerald Buddha -- a Buddha carved in jade. The temple also includes a library, a gallery of statues of past Chakri kings, and a model of Angkor Wat. There is a mural in the wat that portrays the story of the Ramayana; the mural has 178 segments and would be a mile long if the segments were laid in a line.

Middle Palace: The Middle Palace contains the three groups of buildings: The Dusit Group, The Phra Maha Monthain Group and The Chakri Group. Among the sites here is an audience hall mother-of-pearl throne. The buildings of the Middle Palace were constructed over the years to suit the changing needs of the kings.

Inner Palace: The Inner Palace, built in a Western style in 1903, serves as the home of the current king. The nearby Borom Phiman Mansion is a Royal Guest House.

How the Palace Got to Bangkok: In 1767 the Thai capital, Ayutthaya, fell to the Burmese. It had been the capital of Thailand for 417 years. When the city fell, all the members of the Ban Plu Luang dynasty -- the last of five Thai dynasties to rule from Ayutthaya -- were slain or carried away as prisoners.

Thailand could have come to an end. Instead, a general named Phraya Taksin assumed control. King Taksin moved the capital to Thonburi, on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River. He defeated the Burmese and drove them out of Thailand. He revitalized the Thai economy. He ruled Thailand until 1782. How his rule came to an end is the subject of some debate.

The fate of King Taksin is often left undiscussed by online histories. The few online documents that look at the causes of King Taksin's downfall attribute his problems to mental health. Evidently King Taksin began to believe that he was a second incarnation of Buddha. He stopped governing the country and removed himself to a monastry. The ensuing chaos as government broke down led to riots.

The execution took place on April 6, 1782. King Taksin was 48 years old and had been king for 15 years. How does a Thai king get executed. This description comes from a site on Thai historic figures:

"(King Taksin) was deposed by his ministers, who then executed him in the custom reserved for royalty -- by shackling his hands and feet with gold restraints, sewing him into a velvet sack so that no royal blood touched the ground, then beating him to death with a sandalwood club. During the Ayutthaya period a surprising number of Thai kings are reported to have become insane and were eliminated. As in previous cases, many heirs to the king were also executed."

The remains of King Taksin were taken to Wat Bang Yireua Tai. Three years later, in 1785, King Rama I of the current Chakri dynasty had those remains cremated at the wat. In 1921 a tomb and family shrine in southeastern China attracted some attention when the claim was made that the tomb contained the clothes of King Taksin. King Taksin's was only half Thai; his father had been Chinese...

A Thai noble named Thong Duang had been elevated in rank over the course of King Taksin's reign. In 1782 he was commander of the Thai Army. And with the removal of Taksin, Thong Duang ascended the throne of Thailand and became Rama I, the founder of the Chakri Dynasty which still sits on Thailand's throne.

Rama I moved the royal home across the Chao Phraya River into Bangkok, to its current site.