Bangkok's 131-year-old Oriental Hotel stands on the bank of the Chao Praya River as a white-colonnaded symbol of Thais' long openness to outsiders who came to seek their fortunes and, in the process, helped build a country.

Founded by a pair of Danish sea captains, the hotel was deemed fit for guests of the Thai royal family and hosted dignitaries such as Russia's Crown Prince Nicholas in 1891. After the Japanese occupation of the city in the second world war, the Oriental was revived by a group of Americans and Thais, before an entrepreneurial Italian submariner and his Thai partner bought it in 1967. Seven years later the Hong Kong-based Jardine Matheson acquired a 49 per cent stake and still runs the property today.