Dear Friends and Family,

Isn’t today’s picture a lovely example of Italian Renaissance architecture crossed with Neo-Classical architecture? Very reminiscent of the St. Peter’s in Rome… St. Paul’s in London… even the Washington DC Capitol Building… wouldn’t you say? A simply smashing model of the European sensibilities in… wait, Bangkok? Thailand? Asia?

This is the “Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall” (at least it has a Thai name), which stands on the Dusit Palace grounds – the Dusit grounds being a complex of gorgeous royal residences, gardens, and official buildings. This particular throne hall was commissioned by King Rama V, who laid its cornerstone on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his ascension to the Siamese throne. Through my museum visits and reading, I’ve begun to believe that the Rama Kings were a rather handy lot… a subject in which I long to write on but intend to research a bit more. I must be mindful that the Kings could sound useful to me at this point because my most influential sources have been museums - funded by the various Kings. Hmmm… fishy. Anyway, if all Thai Rama Kings have been useful, then it is fair to say that King Rama V, aka King Chulalongkorn, was the most constructive of kings during his 41 years on the throne. Amongst his many notable achievements, he was the first Thai King to visit Europe on his own steamship (how else should a King globe-trot?) in the late 19th century. I’ve seen a few merry pictures of him with royalty: my, that croquet game with the British lords looked fun and I love how the Swedish Queen towered over him in another. Anyway, the time of Rama V’s reign coincided with when European powers were still doing their damnedest to colonize any or all of the continent to bring civilization to Asian peoples (not to mention wealth to the Europeans) and when Asia was a political mine field (ok, not much has changed on that front). Understanding the time in which King Chulalongkorn lived seems key to understanding an important part of Thai history – and to understanding the Ananda Throne Hall. Naturally, his majesty would be inspired by the sites that he took in during his two Europe steamboat tours – and also desirous of impressing the encroaching Europeans with Thai abilities. Nothing I’ve yet read has taken this latter exact tact – but the building tells the tale.

My friend and I made an early start that last Sunday morning in Bangkok as the palace grounds that we hoped to visit are extensive and we wanted to see as much as possible on our last Sunday in Bangkok. My friend and I disembarked from the usual Chao Phraya Express and utilized every ounce of our navigation skills (combination map + instinct + reading signs) to arrive at the palace grounds. On the way, we passed a long row of gorgeous flower stalls with orchids and other lush plants as well as a number of fish stalls with revolting live eels. Surprisingly, the eels made me want to retch and I quickly realized that for me, the only thing more repulsive than dead meat is meat that is still alive and slithering out of its plastic bucket. Truly. Yuck. Anyway, the sign that we had reached the Southern tip of our intended destination was the above-pictured Ananda Throne Hall – which I was duly impressed and excited by. What can I say? Once an Italian-o-phile, always an Italian-o-phile. (And I soon may a drastic revival as it has been over two months since I’ve had a decent plate of pasta.)

The day had already warmed beyond comfortable and locating the entrance was a mite tricky. My friend and I were already on the downward slope to crankiness when we were told at the entrance to the Vimanmek Mansion that we would need to leave our bags and cameras in a locker - which we had to pay extra for. I believe that my photography skills have improved and I have also begun using my camera in lieu of taking notes – and I was equally displeased to be deprived of it as well as that we were forced to stow our items - and pay for the privilege. Yet our money was handed to the locker authority, our bags got tucked in, and we walked to the entrance of palace which was crowded with other tourists. It was then that we recalled that there would be a poor-quality mandatory tour (our guidebooks had warned us) – we weren’t excited by this either. We passed guards armed with machine guns, walked up metal carpeted staircase and were immediately sent back down the stairs to take our shoes off and put them on concealed shelving. We obeyed but were even less pleased – where were the signs for the shoes? Well, the signs were there but small and accompanied by another sign that announced that the palace isn’t responsible for lost shoes, capped off by the sign that we may not carry our shoes either. Hrrumph. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the Thai’s protecting their royal treasures but that morning, their precautions grated. The English tour began just as we returned, shoeless, so we followed a crowd of about 30 into the mansion.

I forgot my irritation almost immediately because Vimanmek Mansion is amazing. Considered the largest goldenwood teakwood mansion in the world, the palace is a beautiful confluence of Thai materials, Thai sensibilities and European architecture. It has a rather fascinating history too. The mansion had been an innocent royal residence in “Chuthathuj Rachathan at Koh Sri Chang” – wherever the dickens that is – when in 1900, it was carefully dismantled and rebuilt on the Dusit Garden grounds in Bangkok that his majesty had purchased with his personal fortune. King Rama V resided at Vimanmek until the completion of another palace in 1906, when the mansion was closed. However, a queen consort used it in the mid-1920s, King Rama VII renovated it for the heck of it in the 1930s, and then it was turned into a storage place of the Bureau of the Royal Household. During WWII, the mansion/storage facility was actually hit by a Japanese WWII bomb but the damage was repaired and the criminal use of the mansion as a warehouse continued until the current Queen, Sirikit, “discovered” the mansion in 1982 and “asked permission of His Majesty the King (Rama IX) to renovate the mansion for use as a museum to commemorate King Rama V” on the “auspicious occasion of the Bicentennial Anniversary of Bangkok.” Precise, interesting language, that: the queen asked permission of her husband to renovate. But she was absolutely right; apparently queens of Thailand can be handy as well.

Vimanmek has somewhere in the order of 80 rooms, and the teak is smooth, oft times painted v. prettily, and it exudes artistic ability, is gracious, and is lavish without being intimidating. The “L” shaped portion of the building is three stories high and is capped off with a four story, large octagonal almost-turret served as the King’s quarters from 1901 to 1906, while the King built himself another fine residence. Frankly, I don’t know why he bothered: the architecture is gorgeous and I was busily planning my own scaled down version of the mansion as we toured the various available rooms. Our guide’s English was not especially comprehensible and I found it schadenfreude amusing to watch him labor to say the tour lines that he had learned. There wasn’t time or space (due to large number of bodies burdened with stinky breath) (obviously the stinky breath didn’t bother me) to get a quality look at the royal Rama V treasures or the rooms that presented them. And forget answering any questions we might have. Yet again, the palace is beautiful so it was worth every ounce of steam that issued from my ears. And more.

When our tour was ungraciously expelled out the door, my friend and I fished out our shoes and walked to several near-by museums. King Rama V had built several houses similar in style to Vimanmek on the grounds of Dusit for the Queen Grandmother and several of his sisters (including one for the sister that was “in charge of the king’s meals because she was an expert on the culinary art.”). These little houses are gems unto themselves and now accommodate various museums: the current king’s photographs (I’m sorry to report that they didn’t look terribly special to me although we enjoyed insight in to the royal family), an “ancient cloth” museum (not so ancient - ~150 years old – nonetheless, my friend was v. excited), and the Royal Elephant museum. Each museum was rather small – which made them enjoyable, although with each visit we had to stow our bags in a (free) locker and remove our shoes. We broke for a lunch of green curry and iced coffee and then made our way to the throne halls.

Sometimes sights are remarkable for what is not said about them – and this was the case with the Abhisek Dusit Throne Hall. No source that I’ve read specified why; however, in 1903, King Rama V built a one-storey, wooden throne hall with intricate, Moorish-inspired decoration with perfectly melded touches of Victorian (i.e. stained glass patterns). The finished hall is a lovely and a fascinating meld of Thai + European + Moorish architecture - but I don’t think that the hall was ever used for much. Now it displays arts and crafts produced by a foundation that the current queen setup in support of traditional arts and crafts. There were some remarkably beautiful pieces on display: my friend adored intricately woven basket/handbags while I loved an unadorned, perfectly shaped jar and lid set. Our entrance into this hall was closely followed by 40 of the noisiest Thai elders, all clad in yellow-King shirts. Their behavior seemed to indicate that a museum “hush” is not a part of Thai culture. We stayed one stop ahead of the elders, smiled at a few curious about us but didn’t linger due to the noisy crowd.

Stepping into the afternoon heat was especially zapping at that point so we made our way to the big throne hall – only to be stopped at the gate because we needed to buy an additional ticket. So we dragged our feet back to a ticket booth, paid the 50 THB, and returned. We walked through the completely, un-Thai restrained hedge garden to the impressive dome building. We entered from a side and were pointed to lockers and admonished not to put our shoes in the locker – they must be placed on shelves. We rolled our eyes at this. But we were truly exasperated when we were informed that women in pants were not at all allowed in the thone room and loaned garish tropical print skirts. We knotted the “skirts” as best we could and walked up a grand marble, twisting staircase, noting the lack of air conditioning. The place was practically empty and all the more impressive for it – but it was jarring too. When I tipped my head back and began evaluating the murals painted into the smaller domes, I began to realize why I wouldn’t, couldn’t like this place. The murals were painted in grandiose Rubenesque, Italian style. I could see that the murals were supposed to reflect significant Thai events but the painted body shapes were utterly wrong and the Thai symbols were not quite right either. It was dreadful. We walked the large room, daylight streaming in from the majestic central dome, marveling at the reception area with gold-brocade couches, a throne area for the King, red velvet curtains, and un-Thai painted motifs including angels and we just shook our heads. It just felt wrong. The Thai ascetic is beautiful and rivals any ascetic developed in Europe (arguably it exceeds few – Bauhaus?!) and this tremendous, costly, Thai State building is empty of the pride and character of its people, not at all a representation of the wonders of Thailand. Although I picture Western royalty or government officials utterly at home in the Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall, the place made me… sad – even when placed in a historical context.

Drained of energy and spirit, we walked to the entrance and negotiated a taxi cab (“meter, yes?”) to Wendy House. Subsequently, I enjoyed one of the sweetest showers, ever. And then a nap. And I awoke to the reality that my tour-time in Bangkok has pretty much ended.

Fondly, --L