No Fixed Abode: The Swarms

Thu 25 Feb 2016 - Ananta Samakhom Throne Room and Vimanmek Teak Mansion

A leisurely start catching the now familiar dirty, smelly water taxi and getting on and off in style along with the locals. Donned in the mandatory long trousers and elbow length sleeves for our visit to the Throne Hall and a Teak Mansion all in the Palace Grounds. The walk to the Throne Hall took us along a very splendid road lined with Government Departments and expanding over the roads we walked under ornate and colourful arches with metres high images of the King, Queen and Prince included on the pillars. This was the Mall equivalent we guessed. The railings to the buildings were swathed in yellow and white, colours representing the royalty here. We enjoyed the shade of the Tamarind trees, we which can now identify following yesterday's cooking class.

Approaching the Throne Hall at the end of this street we noticed it’s not dissimilar style to St Paul's Cathedral and we could already see the hordes of coaches parked up in front of it. Inevitably, we joined the throng of orientals to queue to pay our entrance fee and told to buy a sari skirt for Yvonne as trousers were not permissible. A bargain at £1 but annoying. All personal items, phone, camera, water, hats, sunglasses, etc had to be put into a locker. New regulations since the bombing in Bangkok in August 2015.

We now had to go through security on the other side of the gardens before we could go in the entrance.
With men and women segregated in lines by a rope. Glenn managed to walk straight through as coach loads of Chinese men were queuing in the ladies. Yvonne made gestures to bugger off in your own queue, when a palace guide spotted the misdemeanor and strongly enforced their movement to the correct line on the other side of the rope. The guide then beckoned Yvonne over and ushered her past all the chinese ladies and straight through to the entrance where Glenn was waiting. No body search at all.

The throne hall was built on the Palace grounds for royal and governmental pageantry but now houses an exhibition of the masterpieces from the Queen Sirikit Institute. This charity, set up by the current Queen, helps rural communities around the country to learn the traditional Thai skills to ensure these skills are passed to new generations and not lost. It also enables them to earn a supplementary income.

However, with the current King and Queen hitting their 80s and their only heir his 60s is the last few years these skilled craftsmen have made some extremely elaborate pieces in commemoration. Exquisite gold and jewel encrusted copies of thrones, royal barges and howdahs (the box seat to ride an elephant) in incredible detail and ore inspiring workmanship. A carved fretwork wood panel on traditional Thai themes had scenes on both sides in the teak wood panels. The detail was incredible (Glenn - the most amazing carving I’ve ever seen). Likewise an embroidered scene on the scale of a huge carpet with such delicate silk threads used in an overlapping stitch to create shading of hues and light. Jaw droppingly beautiful. An iridescent blue green decoration provided by the wings and skeleton of Sternocera beetles is used widely to decorate textiles, jewellery and one room was completed decorated with wall and ceiling panels and a 20 armed chandelier. A bit over the top for one room but individually exquisite. All made by poor farming communities and given to the King and Queen. We wondered who bought the diamonds, emeralds, gold etc to create them.

Unfortunately the place was mobbed by you know who’s, but stripped of their phone cameras and selfie sticks, their tour guides were able to swiftly move them past the exhibits with them barely glancing at them. Tour group after tour group, as one left an exhibit they all moved on one. In the brief period between each one we managed to get an isolated viewing intently listening to our handheld guides.

We spent several hours in here marvelling at the craftsmanship but conscious we may run out of time to visit the Teak House we reluctantly left. The Teak House entrance rules were similar so we anticipated the same rigmarole and that’s exactly what happened with the added bonus of having to leave our shoes in a basement. You can imagine the stench of hundreds of pairs of shoes in a hot country. Quickly dumping our shoes we managed to enter before another coach load arrived. Whilst we looked at just the first room, four tours groups were led through and Yvonne quizzed Glenn on where the terrible smell was coming from. Feet, Glenn replied. Our tour around the rooms was leisurely whilst the tour groups just kept on walking past, walking past, walking past. The stench of feet was terrible. The room guides sniffed perfumed bottles and wore face masks. Unfortunately we didn’t have any english guide so all we could take from our visit was a King had it built in beautiful teak and it housed his personal belonging and photographs.

Hot and tired we sedately walked home catching the smelly, dirty water taxi and back to the hotel room duly knackered. We elected to return to the restaurant Once upon a time, just around the corner and had an equally lovely meal discovering a starter using kaffir leaves which you had to fold and fill with various meats, shrimp and spices. Gorgeous.

Returning to pack our backpacks, a 5 minute job, we had an early night slightly apprehensive about our border crossing tomorrow to Cambodia.