Nonthaburi local museum

So far the best local museum I have visited in Thailand has been the one in Nonthaburi. Not only it seems it has better funding than those local museums in the Bangkok district, the location in the historic province hall complex right in the center of Nonthaburi, right at the Nonthaburi pier on the Chao Phraya river. The only major drawback - photography is not allowed inside, so I sadly cannot show the exhibits in here. However, the webmaster of Tour Bangkok had been allowed to photograph, so in his long review of the museum one can find both outside and inside views. In fact, it was that site which made me aware of this museum.

The museum only covers few rooms on two floors, other parts of the complex are still used as a kindergarten or seem to be empty. However, from a map placed near the entrance there are plans to enlarge the museum a lot and cover many more parts of the building. This building did not just contain the province hall, but also had the district office of Mueang Nonthaburi district and the provincial court - not that different from the current governmental center of Nonthaburi. One of the exhibitions rooms is thus on the history of the building, too bad I could not photograph the map which office was in which part of the complex.

The most beautiful rooms are on the top floor, one explaining the traditional main occupation in the province - pottery. It has figurines explaining the way the mud was turned into bowls and pots, and these figurines are of course also made by pottery. There are also two videos to be seen, and most fascinating for our daughter the magic screen showing a scene of pottery loaded into boats. Most interesting for me was the room focusing on the symbols of the province, featuring a large provincial seal in center. Inside the cabinet were the coins with the seal, the stamps, and also an antiquarian booklet compiled by the province administration with history and data on the province. I would love to have a facsimile reprint of that booklet - maybe in the later development of the museum a gift shop will be added, and that would be a great special item to sell there then.

As I could not photograph the inside, I tried to catch many views of the wooden structures of the building, beautifully carved. Too bad all the modern administrative offices have a much more boring and plain building style, this old building has much more charm - but obviously much harder to maintain.

While visitors of the museums are allowed to park their car inside the complex, maybe the best way to go the museum is to take the Express boat - when disembarking from the boat at the final stop upriver one is directly at the museum already, and though it may take longer than by car the boat travel is the cheapest and also most scenic way to travel there. Maybe I will try out this way for a return visit, when the phase one in the master plan is finished there'll be many more rooms with interesting exhibits - only area A was finished in early 2010.

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Museum Siam

One of the best museums in Thailand is the relatively new Museum Siam (มิวเซียมสยาม), located at the southern end of the Rattanakosin island in the former building of the Ministry of Commerce. I learned about it from the great website Tour Bangkok Legacies, where a lot of special places within Bangkok off the beaten track are featured. While it has only few original antique items - if you prefer to see that better go to the National Museum in the north of Rattanakosin -the way of presenting the history of Siam/Thailand is much easier accessible than in the older style presentation of the National Museum. And one big advantage of the latter - here photography in the museum is not only allowed, the clerk who sent me to the first room even explicitly notified me that I can take photos of everything. Also many exhibits are free to be touched for completely experiencing the items.

The first room is a big auditorium, where a short movie is shown as an introduction to the main theme of the museum - why is typically Thai. The movie also introduces the emblem of the movie, a red character in a frog style standing position. One will find many variations of the emblem in the later rooms, but very nice are those hanging in the staircase one has to go up to the third floor. But before the staircase one enters the first exhibit room, which is kind of a wild collage of all the cliches of typically Thai - Muay Thai, temple dancers, a spirit house, a street food carriage and of course inevitably a Tuk Tuk, ready to sit inside to pose.

Starting in the third floor with the early history - starting way before prehistory with the dinosaurs found in the Northeast, racing from the Lampang Man (Homo erectus) and the prehistoric remains, reaching the mostly mythological Suvarnabhumi country as the first main stop. Since Suvarnabhumi more refers to the whole South East Asia, on what later became Thai soil it had the first city states of the Dvaravati culture, which later became replaced by the first Thai city states.

With Ayutthaya being the most successful of these city states, the next room features beautiful boats hanging in the center and several dioramas depicting scenes from various times in this city - a royal cremation, a market, even a Christian church built by the western missioners. Another one room focuses on Buddhism, and one on the culture of war in these times.

One floor down the exhibitions continues with the map room, not only showing old maps like the famous Carte du Royaume de Siam et des Pays Circonvoisins and the first modern cartographic map of McCarty finished in 1897, but even more notable the depiction of the change of the boundaries of Siam is critical of the nationalistic use of these maps and - of course hardly possible in such a short presentation - shows many of the main points of the highly recommended book "Siam Mapped".

The various cultures in Siam at the beginning of the 20th century are shown in small windows with audio and video, and small items typical of them - I photographed the Chinese as the most iconic of them.

The contrast between the farming communities and the modern technology coming into Siam at that time is shown next, including the first postbox of Siam. Next step is already the nationalist Phibun regime, again (at least in English) the description of the displayed items is notable critical of the ideas of these times, where anyone who disagreed with the government policies was termed non-Thai.

A 1960s TV station where one can try to sit as a news announcer in front of the camera is next, and a bar of the about the same time. A time tunnel into the future is then the exit of the exhibition.

The only point I could criticize about the museum is the pricing - like many venues it does the infamous double pricing, whereas foreigners pay 300 Baht, while Thai only pay 100 Baht. It is worth the inflated price nevertheless, but would probably attract even more foreigner with a more fair pricing - and an English website would definitely help to spread to word better, inside the museum everything is bilingual already. Whereas many museums in the western countries have their exit directly into the museum shop, I completely failed to find the museum shop here and wondered why there's no merchandise with that nice emblem. Only after I checked the website again later I noticed that there is a museum shop, but it must be quite well hidden.

Also notable is the fact that this museum is the first one in Thailand which is present in the Web 2.0 - they're quite active on Facebook as well as Twitter; and there are two branch museums planned already, one in Lampang and one in Chanthaburi. When I come in either of these cities these museums will definitely be on my itinerary.

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District museum Yannawa

When I read about Richard Barrow's test ride on the BRT, I was curious to try this new bus system myself. Looking at the route map, I noticed that along the route it has the BMA local museum of Yannawa district, though in between two widely spaced stations, so I had to do quite some walking to get there as well. Nevertheless, this new public transport opens up a new part of Bangkok for those who prefer public transport over taxis, even though these aren't expensive in Bangkok.

The trip to this museum was definitely worth it. Though the museum is a rather small one compared to some other of the district museums I visited, what made it a special visit was the caretaker. The nice woman not only showed me around the items on display, explained them in Thai (sadly I only got maybe 10% of what she told) and also helped me to take good photos by flipping open one Sanskrit manuscript. Not sure what it showed however, but it looked like something about astrology or the calendar. Since she noticed I was quite sweaty from the walk to the museum - it was a rather hot and very sunny day - she also gave me a bottle of water, and a small pack of cookies for snack. I even could get one of the very last copies of the brochures on Yannawa district which she found deep inside a drawer of her desk, hope it wasn't the last one kept for the museum itself.

She not only showed the museum itself, but also the temple where it is housed. Though Wat Khlong Phum (วัดคลองภูมิ) is none of the spectacular temples, it has some interesting sights as well. There are Buddha statues from Ayutthaya times, sadly locked behind bars to prevent theft but which also made photography very difficult; a quite old monk's quarter; the crematorium gave a great view with two failed skyscrapers abandoned in the 1997 Asian crisis in the background; and of course the bot and a viharn next to it also look great, too bad they weren't open to see inside.

My guide even wanted to make sure I will take the right bus to go to my next target, the Bangkok Folk Museum in Bang Rak district (to be featured here later), so she even went to the bus stop in front of the temple with me. I planned to continue my trip by walking to the next BRT station, and then walk within Bang Rak, but it took me a bit to explain my itinerary to her with my still bad Thai.

I had experienced several very good caretakers in the local museums, who very much tried to make my visit worthwhile, but the one in Yannawa topped it all. So if anybody visits this museum after reading my review, make sure to tell her it was "Khun Andreas" from Germany who made you go there.

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District museum Samphanthawong

The district museum of Samphanthawong district, which basically is Chinatown, was originally located within Wat Traimit, the famous golden Buddha temple. It was however removed there in 2006 in order to make space for the massive rebuilding of Wat Traimit, which now has been fully opened. Within the temple it now has a new local museum on the history of Chinatown, the Yaowarat Heritage Centre, a museum I will try to visit in my next trip to Thailand.

The original district museum was however not completely abandoned, it was moved into the Pathum Kongka temple school, only one block away from its original location. To visit it, one however really has to know where to search, as there is no sign at the school entrance nor at the school building which houses the museum. When I went there, the school entrance was blocked by a goal net, as the students played soccer in the inner courtyard, so I had to ask me way through. I was guided to the office building to the right, the upper floor now houses the museum.

The main exhibit in the museum is a row of Chinese shop houses, one with traditional Chinese medicine, a rice trader and a general store. In the larger room it mostly has posters showing reproductions of historic photos with explanation, both in English and Thai, giving an overview of the Chinese community.

Given the much bigger, more elaborate and better located new museum, and even more the total lack of promotion by the Bangkok tourist office (who told Eric from the Tour Bangkok Legacies website that the museum is still in Wat Traimit even after he noticed it being gone) as well as the total lack of signs towards to museum, I doubt it will attract any reasonable number of visitors except those who were able to find the sparse information on it. Though the Song Wat road, at which the museum is located, has far less tourists walking by than on Yaowarat road, one or two English sign would increase the visitor numbers already a lot.

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District museum Khlong San

The smallest of the Bangkok district museums I have visited so far is the on of Khlong San district, just across the river from Chinatown. It is located within the public library of Wat Anongkharam (วัดอนงคาราม), named Udom Wittaya library (หอสมุดอุดมวิทยา). I love libraries, just sadly it has only Thai books in this one so there was no point in browsing through the shelves - besides I was coming there in late afternoon and it seemed they were about to close soon anyway.

The museum is in the first floor, just up the stairs and then to the right. When I entered, I asked the clerk at ground floor for the location of the museum with those few Thai words I can say, so she directed me upstairs and gave a warning call to the one upstairs that it has a farang coming for the museum. I guess foreigner are a rare sight in there, like in all of these museums.

The central place of the museum area is taken by a portrait of Somdet Ya, the mother of King Bhumipol. She was educated in this temple, and close by the temple a Somdet Ya garden was established around a reconstructed house of your youth.

Other exhibits include old tools used by the main professions in the district, like those salt drying tools I photographed. There's also a bell from the Khlong Sa-Tha Chin railway - originally the Maeklong railway started in this district, now the endpoint is at Wong Wian Yai. Another nice antique exhibit is a metal shop sign; also shown are a few Khon masks manufactured in the district - Ban Khon Thai (บ้านโขนไทย) is located in Khlong San.

The museum is most worth if you combine the visit with the already mentioned nearby Suan Somdet Ya, and the temple Wat Pichai Yat, which I may write about later as well.

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House of Museums

A very interesting museum in the western outskirts of Bangkok is the House of Museums (บ้านพิพิธภัณฑ์), where lots of everyday items of the 1950s and 1960s are collected and displayed.

On the ground floor is one corner with lots of toys, mostly tin toys, and since we went to the museum with our small daughter this corner we spend most of the time - she could not get her eyes off from the many toys, all so much different from those she is used to nowadays. There are further two old style shops, though while such a shop layout itself can still be found in Thailand away from the big malls of Bangkok, I could only wonder that so many of the old product packaging was kept by collectors. There also a small shop of old-style toys, though most in plastic already, as well as some treats. Also, directly at the entrance next to the counter are the books by Anake Nawigamune (เอนก นาวิกมูล), the founder of the museum and a very productive writer on many historical topics. Sadly the books are all only in Thai, only the photos inside might be of interest for those living behind the language barrier.

The first floor features a printing press, a barber shop, a photographer shop, and a kitchen, all with the historic utensils. Another room just has many mixed historic items, like a historic playing car, musical instruments, games, dolls. Even more interesting for me was the second floor, especially the office of a district officer as well as an old school room. Finally on the ground floor of the neighboring house is the workplace of a dentist, a Chinese gold shop (still looking much similar to the ubiquitous gold shops of Bangkok).

Though we spend more than an hour in there, we had to hurry through the last rooms since we had another appointment later the day. But as this museum is located close to the home of my brother-in-law, it won't be my last visit there for sure.

The museum is run by a private club and is therefore only open in the weekends when the members don't need to work. It is quite easy to find when driving yourself, from the city center on the highway to Nakhon Pathom (but don't use the elevated one which has only few exits), then right after the intersection with the ring highway change to Phutthamonthon Sai 2 to north, turn left at the end and shortly after at the sign left again.

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District museum Thonburi

One of the local district museums I should mention here is the one of Thonburi. It is relatively easy to reach, has several nice exhibits, but most of all the caretaker was that much concerned about me getting most of the museum it was nearly annoying already. As she did not speak much English, she instead read the text on the plates next to the exhibits.

The museum is located in the 3rd floor of the temple school of Wat Prayurawongsawat, most famous for the replica mountain known as "turtle mountain". It is located right across the river at Memorial Bridge. The temple itself is also worth a visit, but one wouldn't find this museum at all strolling around on the temple grounds. It has a sign on the street outside the temple complex, but not a single hint inside to guide to the school. In the brochure of the temple it has a photo of a sign in front of the school, but I did not notice that one in there. So once I found the school building I asked at the kiosk in front and it quickly had someone guide me upstairs to the rooms occupied by the museum. Felt quite odd to pass the school rooms full with pupils to reach a museum.

The museum itself consists of two rooms, and since it was a very hot day and I was on a walking tour visiting several of these museums the fact one of it was acclimatized was quite comfortable. Since the district shares its name with the historical capital - though the actual palace back then is in Bangkok Yai now - and the former province covering the area west of the Chao Phraya river, these histories are prominently displayed on the posters. It was one of these posters where I learned that the former province hall of Thonburi is located just around the corner of the temple.

Of course the local artisans are featured as well, music instruments from (if I recall correctly) Lao settlers including audio recordings to listen, or the Khon mask shown to the left. Also, photos and descriptions of the main religious sites in the district are shown - apart from the Buddhist temples Wat Kanlayanamit and Wat Prayurawongsawat the Santa Cruz church and the only Mosque built like a Thai temple building are the most prominent ones. These alone already gave me enough ideas of places to visit next time I am out for a walking tour in Thonburi.

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Phra Nakhon district museum

The most beautifully located district museum (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น) is the one of Phra Nakhon district, the central district of Bangkok. Prior to its merger with Thonburi, the Bangkok province was named Phra Nakhon after this central district. The museum is located directly next to the district office on Samsen road. It is therefore close to the popular tourist area of Khao San road.

The museum is in a wooden house in traditional Thai style, the former residence of Phraya Borirak Ratcha (พระยาบริรักษ์ราชา), who was a palace guard for King Rama V till Rama VII. In one room in the second floor it has some portrait paintings of the former home-owner.

The other rooms show various exhibits connected with the local history, the traditions of the citizen like local products, like the baskets and other wickerwork as shown in the photo.

When visiting this museum, also take a look at the district office itself located at the other exit of the lot towards Samsen Soi 3. While most of the administrative offices are located within a modern office building, there's also a historic building which probably was the original district office - however in real I don't know anything about this building, it only look worth to take a photo.

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District museum Bangkok Yai

One of several district museums I visited recently is the one of Bangkok Yai district. In fact I went the three times, the first time I was really too late, the second time I was there half hour before the closing time I read at the local museums database. But actually this had its good as well, because when I then returned there with my wife she could talk with the guide who was very talkative. And additionally to the district museum we could listen to a concert by the school orchestra which was preparing for a public performance few days later.

I was a bit cheating with the introductory photo - that one does not show the district museum, but the Rit Narong Ron museum (พิพิธภัณฑ์บ้านคุณหลวงฤทธิณรงค์รอน). This building was the home of Khun Luang Rit Narong Ron, who as being childless donated his land to become the public school which now bears his name. We couldn't see much in there as upstairs was locked, but it is a well-preserved old styled house. The district museum however wasn't built inside there, but in a large school room next to it.

The first exhibit is the mockup of the Vichaiprasit Fort, located at the mouth of Bangkok Yai canal to the Chao Phraya. On the wall it has posters with information on Wang Doem Palace, the palace of King Taksin and later residence of several other royals.This is now located within a Navy complex, so it was new to me that it is possible to visit it - next time in Bangkok it will be quite high on my list. But for me as a technology guy the old printing press and the original Thai types was even more interesting. It was within this district where Dan Bradley started printing in Thailand with the first newspaper Bangkok Recorder.

Further exhibits include a boat loaded with fruits, as the hinterland of the district was filled with orchards and only at the rim of the river and the canal it had actual settlements. Next to the exit it has two shop house facades. Though I don't know from which part of the districts these were supposed to originate, they are to show the style of living in the past - well, of the wealthy. There are also several more posters on the walls, giving the histories of the various temples in the district, most notably of course Wat Arun.

The museum is rather easy to find - when you drive on Phetkasem towards Wong Wian Yai, directly before the bridge over the Khlong (which also marks the beginning of Phetkasem) turn into the narrow sidestreet, Phetkasem Soi 2. This ends on the school yard, and you cannot miss to see the Rit Narong Ron museum depicted above. The museum is located to the right of that one. Though it is possible to walk there from the newly opened Wong Wian Yai Skytrain station, that's still a 30 minute walk.

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Suan Pakkad palace

Within Bangkok there are hardly any places which really could be given the label "unseen", but even though this one is listed in many guidebooks it gets far less visitors than the prime attraction of the city. When I went there in 2001, there were less than a handful of visitors.

I am talking about Suan Pakkard (สวนผักกาด), a former palace and residence of the Prince of Nakhon Sawan. It consists of a group of four traditional Thai houses connected with walkways, and each of the houses exhibits cultural highlights, the oldest one being Ban Chiang pottery. The most famous of the houses the lacquer pavillon, but sadly my photo of it was not good enough to be displayed here. I think I should revisit the place for some new photos, and I also cannot recall much of the exhibition anymore. Only a collection of khon masks stick to my memory. And I also still have the hendheld fan which was given to me at the entrance - as all the exhibits are in the open houses it can get quite hot.

In the second photo you can see the traditional house together with the Baiyoke Tower, the highest skyscraper of Thailand. I tried to capture the contrast of the two buildings, one centuries old and one so much modern. For another comparison, an historic photo of Thai women in front the the lacquer pavillon at the TEFL sphere also shows the surroundings have changed quite a bit since then - the hairstyle looks like the photo was taken in the 1960s.

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Bangkok Noi District Museum

The Bangkok city administration launched a program to have local museums in every of the 50 district of the city some years ago. The one for the district Bangkok Noi is located not that far away from our home in Bangkok, and coincidentally it is the only one the 20 district museums opened so far which was ever featured in English at Tour Bangkok Legacies, so I could easily get the location and opening times - important to note it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

In fact I visited that museum twice already, the first time was maybe two or three years ago with my brother-in-law shortly after I had seen that recommendation, and I revisited it in April this year to see if I can get more of it this time, and most of all to take photos. Originally I planned to visit other district museums as well, but as usual in vacation time ran out so fast, and I only made it to this one on my last day in Bangkok when I could finally do a little walking tour around Bangkok Noi.

The museum is located in a room of the Suwannaram Witthayakhom school, not far from the district office of Bangkok Noi. It is quite easy to find, there are signs pointing towards it at the Bang Khun Non intersection on Charan Sanitwong Road, near the bridge over Khlong Bangkok Noi. Not far after the intersection the school is to the left, impossible to miss due to a large blue billboard announcing the museum. When you enter the school yard, the museum entrance is at the building to the left.

There is always at least one clerk sitting at the entrance, but sadly they only speak Thai so foreigners have to do a self-guided tour - for Thai visitors they are very happy to explain everything in detail. But as almost all texts at the exhibits are bilingual Thai-English it's easy to get at least a good glimpse on the history and traditions of the district.

Additionally to the text signs with the histories of the district or the important places, there are exhibits for the traditional industries of the area. I have added the photos for two of them - the production of Matum (มะตูม), the bael fruit boiled in syrup to make it a special snack. Another business still present in the district is the casting of Buddha images. Further exhibits are on the production of stone-polished bowls, and the production of another kind of sweet snack, created from roasted rice.

Though the museum is not large, it is worth a visit if you are in the area. And it really deserves more visitors, when I went there I was the first person of the day to sign the guestbook, and the first one for nearly two weeks (the Songkran holiday week was one of it, that can explain the low number a bit). I guess I could say the same about the other district museums, though I haven't yet visited any other one. The city really should make that program more public, the only thing way one learns about it are the signs in the street, the website of the program is hard to find and in Thai only.

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