"There it was, spread largely on both banks, the Oriental capital which had as yet suffered no white conqueror. Here and there in the distance, above the crowded mob of low, brown roof ridges, towered great piles of masonry, King's Palace, temples, gorgeous and dilapidated, crumbling under the vertical sunlight," wrote Joseph Conrad back in 1915, of his arrival in Bangkok.
Today, as I survey the city from above, the light is still falling in shafts, landing on piles of masonry that now reach 60 and 70 storeys high. Our helicopter banks left, following the curves of the Chao Phraya river, its watery fingers reaching into the ancient Thonburi canals; the Grand Palace a vision of radiant red rooftops...