The Thai Palace

If there’s one thing the Thai people love it’s their king. There are pictures of him all over the city (as there were in Phuket when I was there in March) with signs that say “God save the King.” They love their king because he has done wonderful things for the country, like set up social programs to help the poor. The king no longer has any real political power, but he is still has great influence over the Thai people. He’s the world’s longest ruling monarch, and has been reigning for about a year longer than Queen Elizabeth.

After the floating market, we headed to the Thai Palace which is in the center of Bangkok. The complex is massive, and about 1/3 is open to the public. There is a rule that you have to be covered from your knees to your elbows which meant I had to wear a cardigan. In the 95 degree heat this was not fun, but the palace was amazing and made up for the heat stroke from which I almost suffered. The first part of the complex holds various temples and buildings, all in different styles. It is unlike any palace I have seen because the buildings are all extremely close together and none of the architectural styles nor the materials from which the buildings are made match. This is because of some smart kings of the past.

In the 1800s, the countries surrounding what was then Siam were being colonized by England on the west and France on the east. The Thai king didn’t want his country to be colonized, so he severed off the edges of the country, “sacrificing the limbs so the heart could remain” as our guide told us. But still, this wasn’t good enough for France and England and they both wanted to take over what remained of Siam. So the king decided his best bet to keep this from happening was to prove to the west that Siam was a civilized nation. He traveled to Europe with a massive amount of wealth, met with monarchs from all over the Europe and formed relationships with them. He also traded his wealth for wealth from their nations, including Italian marble and other building materials. This is why the palace is built in the way that it is – it is built with all the things the king traded for in an effort to show the west that Siam was civilized. The king also dressed in half-western, half-Thai garb and educated his officials in the ways of the west and taught them English (King and I, anyone?) The king’s efforts paid off, and Siam was the only nation in the area that was never colonized. Today the country is called Thailand, which means “Free Land”.

The first courtyard was filled with various temples and religious buildings. All were extremely ornate, whether they were covered in gold leaf, precious stones (well, actually replicas of precious stones since the real ones were long ago stolen), or pieces of Chinese porcelain. The detail that went into each of the buildings was amazing. There were various statues around the courtyard as well, to guard off evil spirits and to protect those in the temples. The main thing people come to see in this courtyard is the jade Buddha, but on the day we went to the palace the temple that houses the jade Buddha was closed due to a ceremony that was to happen the next day. The annual ceremony is held to motivate the farmers in Thailand to continue farming and to discourage them from giving up the hard farming life for the hopes of an easier life in the cities. The thinking is that if all the farmers move into the cities, how will the country feed itself? The highlight of the ceremony is when a cow is led to a plate full of different crops. Whichever crop he chooses to eat is the crop that will thrive in the coming year.

After roaming through the temples for awhile, we entered the second courtyard that houses the throne room (really a building) and government offices. Outside the throne room was a stand selling mango juice. Our guide told us that there was a surplus of mangos that year, which significantly drove down the value of the fruit and the low prices were hurting the farmers. To solve the problem, the king bought up all the extra mangos and turned them into juice. She encouraged us to buy some juice and it was delicious. The throne room is an unimpressive room where pictures aren’t allowed, but what was impressive to me was that it was the actual room where Anna met the king for the first time (too many years of Muny shows has done this to me!) An interesting detail was that there were screens about three feet inside each entrance, which served the purpose of keeping spirits out of the room. The spirits see the screen and think that it is a wall and that there is nothing interesting past that point, so they continue wandering and leave the throne room alone. Beside the throne room is a large, beautiful building that is the furthest point tourists are able to go inside the palace grounds. It is built in the Victorian style, but has a Thai style roof. Gotta impress those Europeans so they don’t take over your country! After seeing the changing of the guards (much different than at Buckingham palace because there is no gate between you and the guards) we went to our final destination of the day.