Bang Pa-In Palace (The Summer Palace)

It was bright and early in Thailand's ancient capital, Ayutthaya.

 

After a quick breakfast of coffee and croissants, we headed off to Ayutthaya Station to buy a ticket to nearby Bang Pa-In.

Bang Pa-In is a sleepy little town just south of Ayutthaya. It's best known as a former royal resort town.

A ticket from Ayutthaya to Bang Pa-In costs 3 baht, or about $0.03 USD... it's basically free. The train journey takes about 15 minutes, and we settled down into our seats by an open window to enjoy the scenery of the central Thai countryside.

Bang Pa-In Station is much smaller than Ayutthaya Station, and its distinguishing feature is impossible to miss when your train arrives. A small royal waiting room was built for King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who used to enjoy riding the train from Bangkok to his palace in Bang Pa-In. In fact, King Rama V is notable as the Thai king who established the first railroad lines in the country.

The main thing to do in Bang Pa-In is to visit the Summer Palace. The original Summer Palace was built by King Prasat Thong of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1632, but after the fall of Ayutthaya and the relocation of the capital to Bangkok under the Chakri Dynasty, the palace was abandoned.

In the 19th century, King Chulalongkorn re-established the palace as a royal residence, and ordered the construction of several Western-style buildings modeled after the courts and palaces in Europe.

King Chulalongkorn was the first Thai monarch to travel and study abroad. After a tour of Europe, he returned to Siam with his mind set on modernizing the kingdom. He set about abolishing slavery, establishing railroads, and engaging in vital diplomacy with European powers. In fact, this diplomacy is a large part of the reason that Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia never to have been colonized by a foreign power (the name "Thailand" literally means "Free Land" in the Thai language).

He was greatly impressed by the architecture that he saw in Europe, and ordered the construction of many Western-style buildings in Thailand, including the Grand Palace, Wat Niwet, Hua Lampong Station, and more.

The architectural influence is very evident at Bang Pa-In Palace where, surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns, a collection of fantastically-named buildings are located, each looking as if it had been miraculously transported directly from France. To be taken seriously as a modern nation, the king reasoned, Thailand had to present itself as equal in every way to the European powers of the day.

One of the most striking buildings is the Uthayan Phumisathian Residential Hall, a lilac-colored villa surrounded by beautiful gardens. While you cannot enter this building (it is still used for royal functions), visitors are free to walk around the grounds of the palace.

While the Royal Family today doesn't often utilize Bang Pa-In Palace as a residence, it is still used for hosting and entertaining visiting dignitaries. 

Notably, the late King Bhumiphon (Rama IX) often greeted foreign royals, including Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Infanta Elena of Lugo (Spain), and Queen Elizabeth II.

Besides the main royal residence, a handful of smaller villas could be found throughout the property. These had once been holiday residences at the Summer Palace for various members of the Royal Family.

 

One of the structures that stands out the most is Ho Withun Thasana, or "The Sages' Lookout". This tower was constructed upon the orders of King Rama IV, who used it for surveying the surrounding countryside as well as in his famous astronomical studies.

Surrounded by a beautiful, tranquil pond, the Sages' Tower is closed off to visitors. It's too bad... I would have loved to have climbed up, but I understand that it's probably for the safety of the guests as well as the preservation of the 200+ year-old wooden tower.

Just past the watch tower is the favorite building of King Rama VI, a manor which was gifted to the Thai Royal Family by one of the Qing emperors of China and shipped piece-by-piece to Bang Pa-In.

Wehart Chamrunt, or "Heavenly Light" looks different from every other structure at the palace. Rather than the European-style architecture which can be found in the other buildings at the Summer Palace, this villa is distinctly Chinese.

This two-storied mansion contains a Chinese throne on the lower level and a shrine on the upper level. The shrine is a traditional Chinese-style family shrine, and is dedicated to Kings Rama IV and V and their respective Queens.

A bridge across the large central pond was directly inspired by the architecture at the palace of Versailles, and features several unquestionably European classical statues.

An exhibition hall held a small exhibit about the history and architecture of the palace, as well as about the clothing of the time period. It was also the only air-conditioned building on the premises. As it was a very hot afternoon, you can imagine that we took our time exploring the exhibit!

One tragic day in 1880, King Rama V ordered a boat procession of the royal court from Bangkok to Bang Pa-In. The boat carrying Queen Sunanda Kumariratana capsized, and the queen and her infant son drowned in the Chaophraya River.

There's a monument to the queen at the palace grounds. I had also previously seen a monument to King Rama V's beloved wife at a national park in the east of Thailand.

Hot, tired, and hungry, we left the palace after exploring for several hours. We walked to a nearby boat noodle restaurant for lunch.

Boat noodles are a special type of Central Thai noodle served in tiny bowls. The portions are small and cheap, and you'll typically have several bowls in one meal.

For dessert, we had some bananas in sweet steamed rice pudding, which were served in the traditional style in banana leaves.

It was going to be some time until the next train, so we decided to hire a tuk-tuk driver to take us from Bang Pa-In back towards Ayutthaya for our next destination.

As I was learning, there's so much more to see in Ayutthaya than just the ancient ruins!