Bangkok City Pillar Shrine

This guide to the Bangkok City Pillar Shrine turns on the morning of April 21, 1782, when royal astrologers timed King Rama I's workers to lower a post of chaiyaphruk wood into the ground beside the Chao Phraya river, founding the city, only for four snakes to slither into the hole before anyone could stop them. It follows what the soothsayers made of that omen and the prophecy they handed down about the Chakri dynasty. You'll hear how the pillar became Lak Mueang, the point from which distances across the kingdom are still measured, and the home of the guardian spirit believed to watch over the city. Worshippers today circle it with incense, lotus flowers and gold foil.