Golden Mount (Wat Saket)

The hill is man-made by mistake: Rama III tried to build a colossal chedi here, but Bangkok's swampy soil made it collapse into a mud-and-brick heap. The ruin sat abandoned until jungle covered it — then a golden chedi was simply built on top of the 'hill'.

In the cholera epidemics of the 19th century, Wat Saket became the city's charnel ground — tens of thousands of bodies were brought here, and vultures blackened the temple sky.