Once home to the legations and business houses of most European powers, Charoen Krung lost its role as the centre of European commerce and diplomacy in the 1950s. Now just the French and Portuguese embassies remain on their original sites on the riverbank, both delightful colonial structures with arches, louvred shutters, and shady upper balconies. The Hong Kong & Shanghai and Chartered Banks each had their original offices here in the consular and residential European area with its verandahed houses, flagstaffs, tennis lawns and flowering trees which has long vanished. What Somerset Maugham described as the 'trim, green, old fashioned and dignified British legation' is now the site of the squat Central Post Office, its roof bristling with antennae.

One vestige of the commercial past is the handsome building of the venerable East Asiatic Company on the riverbank. Next is the Assumption Cathedral built in 1910 to replace an original structure dating from around 1820. The East Asiatic was formed by Dane Captain HN Andersen in 1884, and for a time he also owned the Oriental Hotel that lies next door.

The Oriental first opened its doors in 1876 on the site of a guest house that had burnt down in 1865. The old wing seen today was built 11 years later when Andersen opened the 'new' Oriental. Designed by an Italian architect, it boasted "forty commodious and well furnished" rooms in 1887. It was then the city's finest hostelry and so it remains today gaining the title "Best Hotel in the World" in 1980 and holding it for a decade.

It was once the only hotel with a riverside location but several others have recently joined it. The Shangri-La was completed in 1986 and the Royal Orchid Sheraton soon after. Further downstream is the Menam and across the River the Sofitel Riverside. None can match the Oriental for its historical romance and air of quality or its guest list which over the century has included Joseph Conrad, James A Michener, Gore Vidal, Noel Coward, and Somerset Maugham to mention but a few. There is indeed a distinct literary flavour to Oriental with its Authors Wing featuring suites named after famous writers.

The Royal Orchid Hotel is linked to a shopping complex called River City. This is the modern centre for the city's antique trade with and abundance of stores and regular antique auctions are held here. In the shadow of river City lie the Assumption Church and the Old Moslem Cemetery.

East along Charoen Krung, past the Sathorn intersection, lies Wat Yannawa with its unique building in the form of a Chinese junk. It was built by King Rama 3 to remind the people that the prosperity of the city originated in commerce. During the reign of King Rama 1 the bulk of state revenue came from junk trade with China, but by King Rama 3's time, trade was increasingly dominated by Western steamships. The temple is popular with Chinese residents of the district.

Despite the new road, Bangkok was still very much a city built on water. As Charles Buls, world traveller and former mayor of Brussels could write on a visit in 1900, "Thousands of small boats circulate in all directions, loaded with fruits, vegetables, betel nuts, and pink lime. Ferries transport bare-chested passengers, from bank to bank. Busy steamers bring pale Chinese merchants to their offices. The floating houses have become stores and display their wares toward the river. Light gondolas, a standing oarsman at the rear, just as in Venice, bring buyers."

The river was the only source of water until 1914. At the Protestant Cemetery on Charoen Krung, the headstones speak of other perils. "John Adams, only son of John Adams Esquire, born in London in 1859, died suddenly of heat apoplexy in Bangkok on 13 April 1891, aged 32 years.".

Charoen Krung remained Bangkok's longest street until the 1930s but by that time the city was spreading north away from the river. Meanwhile, as the Europeans established their base around Charoen Krung, the ascension to the throne of King Mongkut's son King Chulalongkorn heralded the transformation of another part of the city fringing the royal quarter. The area was named Dusit, meaning heaven in Buddhist mythology.