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Kingdom's
population. Such an all-important role is reflected in the
capital's proper name, Krung Thep.
This translates as "City of Angels" and is the first in a
whole string of illustrious titles that properly define the
place -- and, incidentally, earn a listing in the Guinness
Book of Records as the world's longest place name. To the
Thais Bangkok is always Krung Thep, the spiritual and
symbolic as well as physical heart of the nation.
And yet Bangkok is a
comparatively young city. A riverine village and customs post until the late
18th century, it was founded as the national capital in 1782 by King Rama I.
Initially the city was intended to parallel the lost glory of Ayutthaya, the
previous capital destroyed by the Burmese, and was accordingly developed as
an island city with a web of canals. Palaces and temples in classical
architecture were the only substantial buildings; houses and other
structures were made of wood.
Change came in the mid 19th
century when King Mongkut, Rama VI, ordered the building of the first roads
for wheeled traffic. In the same reign, Bangkok was embarked on the path of
commerce with the signing of international trade agreements. A pattern of
modernization and commercialization along largely Western lines has been
followed ever since.
Today most of the canals have
been filled in to make way for roads, and the city has expanded far away
from the Chao Phraya river, thereby losing its original focal point and
abandoning any semblance of a downtown area.
In the last few decades the
pace of growth has been rapid. First in the 1950s and '60s rows of
functional but drab concrete shop houses began changing the face of city then,
in the 1980s and '90s, came concrete-and-glass high-rises.
Today, Bangkok appears as a
modern, dynamic metropolis bustling with today's business. The skyline is
dominated by thrusting office towers, high-rise condominiums, luxury hotels,
department stores and shopping malls. But this is just one aspect of Bangkok.
Joyfully exuberant, the city embraces latter-day developments though,
surprisingly, modern building does not obliterate a wealth of monuments to
traditional glories.
In the soaring roofs and
tapering gilded spires of the Grand Palace, Temple of the Emerald Buddha,
Temple of Dawn and the rest of Bangkok's more than 400 Buddhist temples, you
are presented with images of awe-inspiring Oriental splendour. Contained
within such monuments are masterpieces of sculpture, painting and decorative
arts attesting to the nation's artistic achievement. More
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