Museum Siam

This guide to Museum Siam in Bangkok starts with the building itself, a classical revival palace Italian architects raised for the Ministry of Commerce in 1921, decades before it became a museum at all. It follows the day Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn opened it as Thailand's first discovery museum, on December 23, 2007, and the fourteen exhibition zones built to ask a single question: what does it mean to be Thai. You'll hear about an augmented-reality jigsaw game and a kitchen that traces Tom Yum soup across centuries. Look up at the coffered ceiling as you walk between rooms.