The Inner Moat
Walking the banks of the inner moat with its historic bridges takes us to temples and palaces, and to a beautiful park that holds sad memories.
Duration: 2 hours
It is possible to walk almost the entire length of the inner moat on either bank, crossing over via a series of historic bridges placed along its length. At the southern entrance to the moat, opposite the market of Pak Klong Talat, once the largest floating market for the city but now entirely land-based, is Charoen Rat 31 Bridge, built in 1910, the first year of the reign of Rama VI. The king was following a tradition started by his father, Rama V, in building a bridge from his own funds to mark his birthday Charoen means “growth” or “development”, and the 31 refers to the age of the king at the time the bridge was built. An early example of reinforced concrete, the bridge has an elegant plaster balustrade with eighty-eight tigers rampant, and the king’s initials displayed in a large sunburst. Beyond this is Ubonrat Bridge, a wide structure with an elegantly curving balustrade, built in 1912 as a memorial to Princess Ubonrat, a consort to Rama V.
A short way along the canal bank is the Hor Klong Shrine, a memorial to an officer of a drum tower that stood near this site, who died in a war during the reign of Rama I. There were three drums used for different purposes: telling the time, warning of fires and the declaring of battles. The drum tower was demolished in the late nineteenth century. Another odd shrine near here is the Pig Memorial. Located on the canal bank, the golden figure of a pig might not seem a particularly apposite gift for a queen, but it was created in 1913 as a birthday present for Queen Mother Sri Patcharindra. The queen had been born in the Year of the Pig, and the memorial was built with donations from her friends. Next to the Pig Memorial is the Pee Goon footbridge, built a couple of years before, when the Queen Mother (she was mother to Rama vi) granted the construction costs to commemorate her fourth-cycle, forty-eighth birthday The bridge had no name until the Pig Memorial was built, when the name Pee Goon, or Year of the Pig, was bestowed upon it. This small site here is an attractive one, with a garden-like atmosphere, and the bridge itself is one of the most handsome in Bangkok, with its four decorative posts symbolising the birthday candles of the fourth cycle.
The Mon Bridge that takes Charoen Krung Road across the moat has its origins in the earliest days of Bangkok, when a community of Mons who had lived in Ayutthaya settled in this area. They made a living from selling their own distinctive red-clay pottery, and this is symbolised in the wrought-iron design of the bridge, which depicts the type of jar known as a moh, and which can also be found rendered in plaster on the neighbouring buildings. Nearby is the Hok Bridge. Hok means “lifting”, and the platform of this wooden bridge can be lifted up like that of a Dutch bridge. This structure is not an old one, but it is based on the design of a bridge first built in the reign of Rama IV, in the middle of the nineteenth century. There had originally been four of these, but only this one remains. Nearby is Chang Rong Si Bridge, the Elephant Rice Mill Bridge, the name indicating that the original teak structure was strong enough for elephants to cross over to the royal rice mill that was located here. Prince Damrong had the bridge rebuilt in 1910, the Year of the Dog, hence the amusing dog head design. Near to the dog-head bridge is Charoen Rat 34, built in 1913. The bridge has four plaster posts decorated with stucco: look carefiilly and you will see the Thai figure “4” on each post, standing for the fourth year of the king’s reign.
Directly to the east of the Grand Palace, separated from it only by Sanamchai Road, is the long, low, ochre-coloured bulk of Saranrom Palace, a bronze statue of Rama IV standing on a pedestal in front of the Italianate building. The palace was built towards the end of the king’s reign, one of the first of the magnificent European designs that were later to come in such abundance to Bangkok, and the king had after the death of Second King Pinklao in 1866 decided to pass the throne to Prince Chulalongkorn and retire to this palace to live in retirement as an advisor on state affairs. However, Rama IV died of malaria in 1868, contracted whilst on an expedition to witness an eclipse of the sun at Hua Hin, and Chulalongkorn became Rama V. The new king gave Saranrom Palace to his brother, Prince Chakrabandhu, and later when the prince attained the age at which he should have his own palace, he moved out and it was handed down to another brother, Prince Bhanubandhu. When in 1884 Prince Oscar, son of the king of Sweden, visited Siam he and his entourage were accommodated at Saranrom. A couple of years later, Prince Devawongse, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, requested permission to open an office in the palace, and for several years it performed a dual function as Foreign Office and state accommodation. Prince George of Greece stayed in 1890, and the Tsarevitch of Russia in 1893. When the Siamese government was reorganised along Western lines in 1892, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was greatly expanded and eventually came to occupy most of the building. Directly behind the palace and originally part of the palace complex is a separate building, also European in style, built in 1892 and which used to be home to the Military Academy This was relocated in 1931, and the building now houses the Royal Survey Department.
The pavilion in Saranrom Park, where Rama VI enjoyed listening to military bands
Prince Oscar, writing home whilst on his Siamese visit, was greatly impressed by the “beautiful garden and zoo with deer, monkeys, a black tiger, and many other animals and birds”. Rama V had in fact designed the gardens specifically with the idea of impressing visiting Western royalty and statesmen, as he manoeuvred to avoid the fate of being colonised by proving to the world that Siam was a sovereign and civilised nation. Henry Alabaster, a multi-talented British diplomat and engineer who had been one of the first to arrive at the court of Siam and who had been engaged as advisor to Rama V, had laid out the gardens, and they remain today a beautifully evocative landscape of the middle years of the fifth reign.
The gardens became Saranrom Park in 1960, a public garden with a botanical park, a large pond, pavilions, and a traditional teak house. Rather strangely, they are set to the side of the palace, but this is explained by the fact that the main entrance was originally on the south side of the building, directly facing the gardens: Rama V, on his frst visit to Europe in 1897, had invited many members of European royalty to visit Siam, and in anticipation he had the palace redesigned and the entrance moved to the side, facing the Grand Palace. Entering the gardens today can be via the front, at Sanamchai Road, or through the huge white wrought-iron gates that face the inner moat. Prince Vajiravudh, before he became Rama vi, had stayed at Saranrom for a while and the pavilion where he liked to hear military bands playing is preserved in the park. In the reign of Rama VII, after the 1932 revolution, the reception rooms in the park were used as a gathering place for young intellectuals, and the king also used the grounds for the training of the royal guard. Towards the southern end of the park is a white marble monument, a memorial to Queen Sunantha, the first consort of Rama V, who had drowned with their two-year-old daughter, Princess Kannabhorn, while on a visit to the summer palace at Bang Pa-In in 1880. The royal boat had capsized, and despite help being available, by Siamese tradition no one was allowed, on pain of death, to touch a queen except for the king; not even to save a life. Rama V was grief-stricken. The queen had been only 19 years old, and she was pregnant with their second child, who it transpired would have been a male heir. Saranrom had been her favourite garden and the king had her ashes and those of the young princess buried in this monument. There is another monument at Bang Pa-In, and a third in the form of a granite pyramid placed next to a waterfall at Chanthaburi province, another favourite place of the young queen.
In the northern corner of Saranrom Park is the small temple of Wat Ratchapradit, standing on about three-quarters of an acre of land that was a coffee plantation before Rama IV used his own funds to build the temple in 1864. An immediately striking feature is the grey marble tiles that clad the chedi and the ubosot and its rounded columns. As the tiles are in both light and dark tones, the effect is slightly chequered. There is also a distinct Khmer influence, with two large prangs carrying faces that are in the Angkor style. Inside the ubosot the Buddha image is set against a blue mosaic of mirrors, and the ceiling is finished in red and gold with crystal stars. French standing lamps, English street lamps, and a German clock that is still solemnly ticking are amongst the items in this small compound, some of which were gifts to the king, whose seal appears in gilded lacquer on the pediment of the wiharn. Wat Ratchapradit was built as the first temple dedicated to the reforming Thammayut sect, the monks being distinguished by their brown robes, rather than the traditional saffron. Rama iv, before he became king and when he was a monk at Wat Ratchatiwat, had founded this sect to restore purity to the interpretation of the Pali Canon. He had subsequently become abbot of Wat Bowon Niwet, in the northern part of Rattanakosin Island, where he continued to promote his reforms. Wat Ratchapradit was the first temple built from new that was dedicated to Thammayut, which following the Sangha Act of 1902 is recognised as the second of Thailand’s Theravada denominations. Rama IV died shortly after the temple was completed. Inside the wiharn a mural depicts him visiting Wakor district in Prachuap Khiri Khan province in 1868 to observe the total eclipse of the sun, which as a keen astronomer he had predicted two years before the event. The journey had been a state occasion and had included a large number of foreign dignitaries. The eclipse had happened on 18th August exactly when and where the king had calculated it would, and represented an enormous triumph for him in establishing a reputation for Siam as a civilised country, an important strategy to keep at bay the circling colonial powers. But the king contracted malaria on his visit and died six weeks after returning to Bangkok. Prince Chulalongkorn, who had been on the journey with his father, and had also contracted malaria, became Rama V. He ordered the painting of the mural and also had some of his father’s ashes buried beneath the Buddha image.
The inner moat was part of the original defence works and is crossed by historic bridges.
The enormous symmetrical bulk of the Ministry of Defence was completed in 1884, designed in a European style, and originally named Rong Taharn Na, or Front Barracks. On the lawn in front of the building is the Museum of Cannon, displaying a large selection of artillery, including most notably Phraya Tani, the seventeenth century siege cannon that was built by the sultan of Pattani in response to territorial ambitions by the Siamese. Pattani later became a tributary state of Siam, but broke away during the fall of Ayutthaya. Rama I sent his brother, Deputy King Maha Sura Singhanat, to recapture the province. The campaign was successful, and Phraya Tani and a twin cannon, Seri Negara, were both seized. The two cannon were loaded on board a ship, but Seri Negara fell overboard, and lies on the seabed to this day Phraya Tani is the symbol of Pattani, which remains a restless province, with a largely Muslim population that has more in common with Malaysia, with which it historically has a closer relationship. During a time of recent unrest it was noticed that the
Muzzles of the cannon on the Defence Ministry lawn were pointing towards the Grand Palace, and they have now been turned to politely point to the south and the north. Phraya Tani and its twin were the largest cannon ever cast in Siam.
In 1887 Rama V issued a decree to establish a War Department, and he began to arrange Siam’s military affairs along the Western pattern, to demonstrate that this was an advanced nation and not one that required the civilising intervention of the European powers. He engaged European officers to manage the departments and train the troops, and following the brief Franco-Siamese War in 1893, during which the possibility of Siam being absorbed into the French colonial empire became frighteningly apparent, the department was upgraded to the Ministry of Defence, with the army and navy under its command. Rama VI continued the policy of continually developing the nation’s military capabilities.
Much of the Rama VI Museum, situated nearby in the Ratchawonlop Building, which is part of the Territorial Defence Department, is devoted to the king’s military interests. As Prince Vajiravudh, he had trained at Sandhurst and served with a light infantry division of the British Army, and as soon as he became king he established the Wild Tiger Corps, a paramilitary force inspired by the British Volunteer Force. During World War i, Siam joined the Allied forces when the United States entered the war in 1917, declaring war on Germany and the Central Powers. Rama VI despatched a force of 1,300 troops to the European front, and they arrived in 1918, flying the new tri-colour national flag. At the end of the war, the Siam Expeditionary Force joined the victory parade in Paris, and they returned to Bangkok in September 1919. They suffered nineteen dead. These men were cremated in Europe, and their ashes were brought back and enshrined in the Monument to the Expeditionary Force, which is set at the northern end of Sanam Luang, a white four-sided structure topped by a small chedi and with the
Names of the dead inscribed on the four sides.
At the northern end of Sanam Luang the inner moat passes beneath Pan Pibhop Leela Bridge, originally built in 1906 for Ratchadamnoen Avenue, and from here the canal disappears under the approach road for the modern Pinklao Bridge, which crosses to Thonburi and has its landing behind the Royal Barge Museum. Diehard moat followers can find the northern entrance next to the Pinklao Ferry Pier. At the point the canal disappears under the road stands a shrine to U-Toktan, the earth goddess. More than a shrine, it also serves as a public water faucet and was installed in 1872 from the private fiinds of Queen Mother Sri Patcharintra.
World History
