Vimanmek Mansion

Last Sunday I got up early having decided to try to beat the heat and headed out to Vimanmek Mansion. Vimanmek Mansion was built by King Rama V better known as King Chulalongkorn of Anna and the King of Siam fame. He purchased a large tract of land now known as Dusit Gardens and built the Mansion and a number of surrounding buildings for other members of his family. It's the largest golden teakwood building in the world. The building and grounds have gone through various stages of occupation and lack thereof. After many years as a storage facility, the building and grounds were renovated by the current Queen of Thailand, Sirikit. Today it houses a museum dedicated to King Chulalongkorn with many of his photos and personal artifacts. The mansion also plays host to many official occasions. I wandered around for awhile and took the tour. Besides the buildings there are traditional Thai dance performances twice a day. I enjoyed the dance and as you can see, I took quite a few more pictures. No surprise, right?

The mansion is a regular tour stop for school children as well as the usual busloads of other Asian tourists. Over the past month or so, I have become more and more aware of the influence of the Ramayama in Southeast Asian culture. In Thailand it is called the Ramakian. The Rama name for the Thai Kings is of course from Prince Rama in the legend. The Ramakian is performed in many guises from puppet shows to traditional dance. I have now seen the Machanu scene performed three different times, once in the puppet show and the other two times in dance. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Machanu is the long lost son of Hanuman the Monkey King who served Prince Rama. Interestingly to me anyway, in both dances Machanu was played by a female. I have not yet figured out why, but I'm still working on it.

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