Europe in Thailand

Rice fields from the train

Rewind to a few weeks ago when I was still plagued with visitors and I made a day trip to Bang Pa-In with my friend Costanza. Bang Pa-In is the site for the old royal summer palace. It is only about 20 KM from Ayutthaya, but like traveling anywhere in Thailand, it took us a while to get there.

We have some friends that work at the school next to the palace so they were able to offer us advice on how to get there. It’s a 20 minute walk, ferry, train, and taxi ride away. For an afternoon excursion, it was doable. I can’t imagine the frustrations for a morning and evening commute!

Palace Grounds

Getting off the island wasn’t too bad. We walked the 20 minutes and found the ferry easily. The small, rickety ferry arrived a couple minutes after we got to the dock and we hopped on with the other Thais, and even one of my students. The ferry ride was a total of 1 minute, just taking us off the island (remember: Ayutthaya is a land-locked island) to the other side of the river. We somehow got our hands on a train schedule and even though we were warned that the train is usually delayed, we got there with 10 minutes to spare. We asked when the train would be arriving. The man we asked pointed to the arrivals board and informed us it was an hour and a half late.

Costanza putting on her shoes after checking out the royal raft

Costanza and I got a bite to eat nearby and finally got on the train, which ended up being more than an hour and a half late. It was what you’d expect a train in Thailand to be: fairly old, no AC, and all of the windows and doors open to get some good circulation going in what would otherwise be a stifling car. Knowing that we were the first stop, Costanza and I hopped off as soon as the train came to a stop. Realizing that no one else got off and that the name of the station we were at DID NOT match our final destination (thankfully the signs were not solely in Thai), we had to jump back on to the train which was already moving away. Everyone was staring at us, obviously, because not only are we farangs, but we were the stupid farangs.

This is the observatory. It looks like it is straight
out of Candy Land

The next stop was where we were actually supposed to get off, so we jumped off the train and found a tuk tuk outside of the station. We were able to find another tourist from South Korea and share the fairly small price to get from the station to the palace.

The palace is on a large grounds that consists of the outer and inner palace. To be completely honest, I was confused as to which was which, but I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. The palace grounds are comprised of a lake in the middle, gardens, and many different buildings with different architectural styles, many of which are European inspired. There’s even a bridge in the middle modeled after the Bridge of Angels in Rome.

As nice as it was to get a little bit of familiarity with the European architecture, my favorite building was the Chinese guesthouse, which was all red and gold inside. My favorite piece of art was a huge intricate carving out of camel bone. It was in the shape of a boat with many different scenes of animals and people. Unfortunately, we were not able to take pictures of it, but you have to believe me when I say that it was awesome. We spent a good 5 minutes staring at it in disbelief.

The Chinese guesthouse

The only other building we were able to go into was a French style building with incredibly opulent and European inspired tapestries and furniture. Most of the palace was constructed in the mid to late-19^th century, a time after the great kingdom of Siam had fallen, but Thai royalty was able to see the world. This Western influence is still seen in Thailand today. Thai style buildings are rare, largely because most of the country can only afford to live in wooden walled and tin-roofed shacks. The malls in Bangkok look as if they could be anywhere in the world, and even the Grand Palace is French Style with a Thai style roof. My students have a strong connection with Thailand in that they are extremely nationalistic and do not see the importance of learning English, though they coat the faces in baby powder to look whiter, sometimes using skin whitening products, and constantly compliment me on my “beautiful” pointy nose. Comments on my light skin and big eyes are generally included when I ask my students what I look like, even though I did not teach them that. It’s an interesting culture to be living in, and it was even more interesting to see some of the roots of the Western obsession in the 19^th century palace.

Our few hours in Bang Pa-In ended with a ride to the train station, which was unlike any other I had ever taken. We thought we would be able to find  a tuk tuk or motorbike taxi at a nearby 7-Eleven. There were none in sight, but there was a motorbike rickshaw option. Costanza and I hesitantly climbed into the unstable and braced ourself for the bumpy 5 minute ride--constantly worrying that our bench in the back would detach from the motorbike.