The Grand Palace in Bangkok is really where Bangkok, as Thailand's capital city, began when it was decided to move the capital from across the river in Thonburi to where the Grand Palace stands today.

The walls around the Grand Palace were built in 1782 and so that is when Bangkok was founded as the present capital.

The Grand Palace in Bangkok, is exactly that: Grand. The place is huge with a total area of 218,400 sq. metres and completely surrounded by tall thick white walls that stretch for 1900 meters.

Take a boat bus to the Grand Palace	Get off at Tha Chang
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For the purpose of this photo guide to the Grand Palace in Bangkok, we'll assume you've decided to take one of the river buses that can be joined from any number of piers, but if you join at Thaksin Bridge, or Saphan Taksin, you can have an easy 15 minute cruise up the river ( costs just 18 Baht each ), passing The Shangri-La Hotel, The Oriental Hotel, The Peninsula Hotel, Wat Arun and view the general goings on on the Chao Praya river.

The Palace comes into view	A close up from the Chao Praya river.
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Going up the Chao Praya river ( River of Kings ), if you keep your eyes open to the right of the boat, you will see The Grand Palace come into view and this will give you time to prepare yourself to get off the boat.

Once you have carefully got off the boat, you'll need to walk through a small market, stall area where you can get a drink, snacks or fruit, but to avoid paying too much, wait until you pass through that short section and on your left is a 7 - 11 store where you can get a much larger choice of standard priced drinks.

Walk through this market area	This building will be on your left
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Once you've got through the small open market area, cross the road and follow the white wall to the main entrance gate which will have a few guards on point. There are usually a large number of buses or mini vans etc around that area too.
On the other side of the road from the entrance are a couple of shops. These are tourist traps and will charge you a fortune for a small bottle of water.

Follow this white wall...	...to the entrance gate
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The day that we went to take all of these photographs, we thought we'd been clever by going when it opens and when it is cooler in the morning but there were hundreds and hundreds of Japanese, Chinese and Koreans on guided tours. Also, the sun hadn't come out yet and so taking good quality photos was difficult, with many images coming out very dark.

Now, at the ticket desk you will be charged 250 Baht while you merrily watch all the Thais walk in for free. The ticket entitles you to go to all the public access areas of the Grand Palace but you'll not need to produce it again once you've gone through the ticket gates. It's worth noting that there are a number of shops lining the short walk from the ticket booth to the turn stiles. You can buy film batteries etc here but we can't vouch for the prices.. At the turn stiles you will be given a map.

Now when we took the picture at the top of this page, we used the same camera as all the other images, but the day we took the top picture, it was sunny.

If you know about photography, then this might sound like an exercise in sucking eggs, but The Grand Palace in Bangkok begs for sunlight and sunny days. All the colours bring the palace to life and your photographs will come out so much better.

So our advice is, if one day it's cloudy and you've still got a few days left in Bangkok, then wait to see if the next day is sunny. We can assure you that the Grand Palace will be that much more amazing.

Don't miss walking among these pillars	And view the fascinating murals
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