Dusit Palace Park and Monk's Bowl Village 18.02.10

Bangkok's busy CBD and one or two of infamous tuk tuks

Another hot walk (33 degrees) up to Dusit Palace Park complex brings us to one of the King's current residences, Vimanek Mansion, several state buildings housing exhibitions on the monarchy and a grand European style palace. Vimanek Mansion is entirely constructed from Thai teak and is a resplendent octagonal shaped building with wings on either side.

The King uses it for official guest visits and celebrations and the rest of the time it's a museum displaying the dignified suites and a large collection of royal gifts from notable friends round the globe. I love the highly varnished teak floor under my bare feet and vow to aim for owning a house one day in which I can have such a floor! The painted wooden walls in subtle shades of green, pink and beige are calming in their nature and the lattice work at the tops of the doors and windows is pretty and lets through a much needed breeze of fresh air. The main royal apartment is in the central octagonal building and the sitting room and relaxation area is impressive with it's many windows on every side. Up the beautiful teak staircase that winds in a triangular fashion leads to the bedroom suites and bathroom with, unusually, a large shower (the water, however, had to be brought up the stairs in large vessels every morning). We have a look round one of the King's own photography exhibitions showing some of his personal collection of photos taken of his wife on her royal duties and more relaxed portraits. They reveal how he admires her, and it helps she's really pretty. One of the more interesting snaps is of the members of a crowd of civilians taken as he passes by in his entourage. Normally it would be the crowd taking pictures of him. The King being an avid photographer and his other hobbies of painting and playing the saxophone are well known to the populace and only endears him further to them. His wife is an enthusiastic patron of the arts and textiles heritage of her country and actively encourages the craftsmanship of woodcarving, gilding and stone setting to create elaborate pieces of royal decoration such as thrones. She does this through her founding of a special school and support network for young students to train from old masters of the arts and crafts. When her attention turned to the revitalisation of the handwoven Thai silk traditions she invited tribes members from the rural parts of Northern Thailand specialising in dying forms of textile weaving to come to Bangkok to train young enthusiasts. In the palace building at Dusit, which, incidentally, is unashamedly European in design (like St Pauls with all the painted domes), there are examples of the work of the Queen's support school on display, showing everything from incredibly detailed wooden and inlaid carved thrones, to shimmering silk thread embroideries of lotus ponds spanning the length of the room. Very impressive. Later on we buy our own little piece of Thai history in the form of an original handmade monk's bowl. These bowls are made from a traditional technique of fusing eight pieces of steel together (eight to represent the eight stages of enlightenment) with copper and hammering out the shape for hours on end. This time consuming process is only undertaken by a few families now, in Soi Ban Baht road, tucked away off the main street and the cottage industry is only really kept going by the occasional tourist who manages to find the road and buys one.

the hammering process/ tools of the trade!

Monks today tend to use mass produced bowls for the collecting of alms in the morning and, on Khao San road, we even saw one with a plastic bag collecting fruit.