Grand Palace & Emerald Buddha
Thailand's holiest square kilometre — a golden citadel the whole country was rebuilt around.
The Emerald Buddha isn't emerald and isn't big: it's a 66 cm figure carved from green jasper or jade. Yet it's Thailand's most sacred object — and the King personally climbs up to change its gold seasonal costume three times a year.
Legend says the statue was found in 1434 in Chiang Rai, when lightning cracked open a stupa and monks noticed green stone glinting under flaking plaster — a disguise trick that echoes Bangkok's other great hidden Buddha, the gold one in Chinatown.
Inside the palace walls stands a detailed scale model of Angkor Wat. Rama IV ordered it built in the 1860s when Siam still ruled over Angkor — so his subjects could see the wonder without the month-long journey.