Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [4]
Top 100 Thai Websites (www.click2thailand.com) What it says on the box – links to all sorts of interesting Thai websites.
Tourism Authority of Thailand (www.tourismthailand.org) Handy planning hints and events guide.
BACKGROUND
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HISTORY
FROM THE BEGINNING – AYUTHAYA & THONBURI
THE AGE OF POLITICS
THE RECENT PAST
ARTS
VISUAL ARTS
FASHION
ARCHITECTURE
LITERATURE
MUSIC
CINEMA
THEATRE & DANCE
ENVIRONMENT & PLANNING
THE LAND
URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
CULTURE & IDENTITY
MAGNET AND MELTING POT
A CITY OF FAITHS
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
MEDIA
TIMELINE
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HISTORY
Since the late 18th century, the history of Bangkok has essentially been the history of Thailand. Many of the country’s defining events have unfolded here, and today the language, culture and food of the city have come to represent those of the entire country. This role may once have seemed unlikely, given the city’s origins as little more than an obscure Chinese trading port, but, today boasting a population of 10 million, Bangkok will certainly be shaping Thailand’s history for some time to come.
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FROM THE BEGINNING – AYUTHAYA & THONBURI
Before it became the capital of Thailand in 1782, the tiny settlement known as Bang Makok was merely a backwater village opposite the larger Thonburi Si Mahasamut on the banks of Mae Nam Chao Phraya, not far from the Gulf of Siam.
Thonburi Si Mahasamut itself had been founded on the right bank of Mae Nam Chao Phraya by a group of wealthy Thais during the reign of King Chakkaphat (1548–68) as an important relay point for sea- and river-borne trade between the Gulf of Siam and Ayuthaya, 86km upriver. Ayuthaya served as the royal capital of Siam – as Thailand was then known – from 1350 to 1767. Encircled by rivers with access to the gulf, Ayuthaya flourished as a river port courted by Dutch, Portuguese, French, English, Chinese and Japanese merchants. By the end of the 17th century the city’s population had reached one million and Ayuthaya was one of the wealthiest and most powerful cities in Asia. Virtually all foreign visitors claimed it was the most illustrious city they had ever seen, beside which London and Paris paled in comparison.
Throughout four centuries of Ayuthaya reign, European powers tried without success to colonise the kingdom of Siam. An Asian power finally subdued the capital when the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya in 1767, destroying most of the great city’s Buddhist temples and royal edifices.
Many Siamese were marched off to Pegu (Bago, Myanmar today), where they were forced to serve the Burmese court. However, the remaining Siamese regrouped under Phaya Taksin, a half-Chinese, half-Thai general who decided to move the capital further south along Mae Nam Chao Phraya, closer to the Gulf of Siam. Thonburi Si Mahasamut was a logical choice for the new capital.
Succumbing to mental illness, Taksin came to regard himself as the next Buddha, and his behaviour became increasingly violent and bizarre. Monks who refused to worship him as the Maitreya (the future Buddha) would be punished by flogging, for example. Disapproving of his religious fantasies and fearing the king had lost his mind, in 1782 his ministers deposed Taksin and executed him. His execution was in the custom reserved for royalty – sealing him inside a velvet sack to ensure no royal blood touched the ground, then beating him to death with a scented sandalwood club.
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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Upon completion of the royal district in 1785, at a three-day consecration ceremony attended by tens of thousands of Siamese, the capital of Siam was given a new name: ‘Krungthep mahanakhon amonratanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amonpiman avatansathit sakkathattiya witsanukamprasit’. This lexical gymnastic feat translates roughly as: ‘Great City of Angels, the Repository of Divine Gems, the Great Land Unconquerable, the Grand and Prominent Realm, the Royal