It’s not every morning you watch a dragon walk slowly past whilst you eat breakfast, but it’s not a jet lag induced hallucination as I tuck into my passion fruit and papaya. It’s a large lizard, tongue flicking the air, marching along the side of the pool at our little boutique hotel, Ariyasom Villa, in the Sukhumvit 1 area of Bangkok. 

We arrived last night and were met at the airport by Toto, our grinning guide, who introduced us to No, our driver for the next ten days, and they brought us to this little tropical oasis in the heart of the city, hidden at the end of a street next to the Bangkok canal. The hotel has a wonderful vegetarian restaurant called Na Aroon which at night feeds us meals of fragrantly tasty steamed dumplings, chilli aubergine and vegetable green curry with three colour rice, and on our final evening, spicy cashew and vegetable stir fry with thai-basil minced tofu and spring rolls. 

Once our dragon-spotting breakfast is finished Toto meets us and we make a plan to see the top sights of Bangkok in the next 48 hours. We tell him we’re happy to do a full day with him today, but suggest we spend tomorrow exploring by ourselves so we plot our adventures accordingly and head to the nearest Sky Train station, Phloen Chit. 

After a change of line at Siam Square we arrive at Sathorn Pier on the mighty Chao Praya river to take a boat to the Grand Palace, passing the towering likes of the Mandarin Oriental and Peninsular Hotels, and Bangkok’s premium mega-shopping mall Icon Siam as we go. 

The Grand Palace was constructed in 1782 by King Rama I, when he took power from the previous King Taksin, and started the Rama dynasty which continues to this day, with the current Rama X succeeding his father to the throne just a few years ago. At the heart of the royal palace complex is  Wat Phra Kheaw, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, a small jade statue which is the most sacred symbol in the whole country.

In fact the Thai name for Bangkok is Rattanakosin, meaning ‘The place where the Emerald Buddha resides’. As a result it’s the ‘must see’ attraction for every tourist and ridiculously overcrowded. We file past in an ever-flowing convoy of worshippers and sightseers. 

As one of the leading Buddhist nations on earth, Thailand is renowned for its temples and we are here to visit some of the most famous Buddhas of Bangkok. While the Emerald Buddha is housed in ornate grandeur, it is a diminutive figure (just 66 cms) clothed in its ‘cold season’ cloak. Every four months the King ceremoniously changes its vestments according to Thailand’s three seasons - rainy, hot and cold. It being December we are in the cold season being a mere - yet sweltering - 32 degrees celsius outside. 

However we have many more dramatic and sizeable representations of Lord Buddha to come, once we leave the Grand Palace complex. Walking through the grounds, past the stunning Royal Pantheon, the Amarindra Thone Hall, along the beautifully painted Royal Cloisters and on past the delicately decorated belfry, intricate pavilions, the gold Chedis, the multi-pillared Phra Mondrop and the huge Chakri Maha Prasad Throne Hall, we marvel at the dramatic and exquisite architecture spread over the 218,000 square metres of the site.

A short ferry ride across the river in Thon Buri, is Wat Arun, the temple of the dawn, where King Taksin established the new capital of Siam in 1767, after the fall of Ayutthaya. The shrine he built to house the Emerald Buddha, before it got moved by Rama I, has long gone but the 82 metre Khmer-inspired temple tower that rises high above the river is still considered one of the most sacred sites in Thailand and represents the birthplace of Bangkok. We jostle through the crowds and walk around the monument, with its depictions of Buddha’s birth and death, and dodge the Thais and tourists dressing up for photos in traditional costume. 

Taking the ferry back to the Ko Ratnakosin side, we come next to one of the greatest sites in the whole country and one I’ve been waiting to see again since my last visit to Bangkok almost 25 years ago. Wat Pho is the home of the Reclining Buddha, which is 15 metres high and an immense 46m long. Entirely covered in gold leaf and with enormous feet inlaid with intricate mother of pearl, it depicts Buddha in repose , and was commissioned by King Rama III over 170 years ago. 

The statue is the centrepiece of Wat Pho but the complex includes thousands of further statues of Buddha, not least the Phra Buddha Deva Patimakorn in the Phra Ubosot temple where we sit with Toto while he pays his devotion. Once we leave, being showered with holy water and given a red bracelet by smiling orange-clad monks bidding us “Welcome to Bangkok”, we head to a cute and tiny little restaurant Toto knows called The Sixth for a well-earned lunch and some much-needed air-conditioning.

Tomorrow we will get even closer to one of the most revered, and yet little visited, Buddhist sites in the city when we pay our respects at Wat Ratchanatdaram, but for the moment we say goodbye to Buddha and suitably refreshed, hop into No’s waiting people carrier and drive to one of Bangkok’s more recent attractions, the Jim Thompson House and Museum. 

The adventurous son of a rich American family, Jim Thompson was born in 1906 and studied to become an architect in New York. Posted to Southeast Asia during the Second World War, he fell in love with Thailand and settled in Bangkok at the end of the war. He established a business developing and trading Thai silks around the world, supporting working communities and becoming a philanthropic millionaire in the process. His silks began gracing the pages of Vogue and became world-renowned after they were used extensively in the film The King And I in 1951. 

He rescued a number of traditional Thai homes and relocated and restored them, filling them with beautiful antiques from across the country, set amongst a tropical garden, and opened them to visitors. However in 1967, on holiday in Malaysia, he went for a walk in the mountains and vanished into thin air. His disappearance was front page news around the world and is still a mystery to this day, but his nephew inherited his business and estate and turned the house into a museum, with the silk company still one of the leading luxury brands. 

We follow our guided tour through the rooms and buildings where Jim Thompson lived and worked, marvelling at his taste and treasures and then Toto takes us back to our hotel on a canal boat, which runs pretty much door to door. We have just enough time to freshen up before our tuk tuk arrives and Toto leads us out once more to explore Bangkok’s night-time delights.