Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
mansion painted yellow and white, set amongst trees and with a spacious forecourt pro-
tected by an elegant fence. There is a functioning clock in a central tower, and a Thai flag
flies from the roof. here are no signs of life here, and when examined from the rear, the
house, although it has an attractive leafy back garden, proves to be only a façade. When
the bridge and roadworks were being constructed, Bangkok lost one of its architectural
gems. Siam had issued its first stamps in 1883 and opened its first post office the same
year, housed inside a mansion belonging to Phra Preecha Kolkarn. Almost exactly a cen-
tury later, in 1982, the old mansion was demolished to make way for the approach road.
Although it had ceased to be the postal headquarters in 1927, when the General Post Of-
fice opened on Charoen Krung Road, the building with its symmetrical Rama
V
-era façade
and its tall clock tower was still firmly associated with the postal service and featured on
a centenary stamp the year after its destruction. As part of the conservation plan for Rat-
tanakosin, the frontage of the house was rebuilt to a smaller scale near its original site in
2004.
The Memorial Bridge, originally a bascule span powered by electricity.
At the foot of the Memorial Bridge is Wat Ratchaburana, one of the oldest temples in
Bangkok, having been built late in the Ayutthaya era by a Chinese trader named Liab. Ini-
tially known as Wat Cheen Liab (
Cheen
meaning “Chinese”) it later became known as Wat
Liab and gave its name to the power station that was built here on temple land. Electri-
city had been introduced to Siam in 1884 by Field Marshal Chao Phraya Surasakdi Mon-
tri, who had served as charge d'affaires at the Siamese Embassy in Paris and been greatly
impressed with the illumination of the city by electric light. Returning to Bangkok, he at-
tempted without success to raise interest in the possibilities of electricity. Realising that
electric light had to be seen to be believed, he decided to introduce lighting to the army
barracks, which is now the Ministry of Defence building and which was then being con-
structed on a site next to the Grand Palace. Selling some land he had inherited from his
father to raise the finance, the field marshal commissioned one of his military trainers,
an Italian named Mayola, to visit England and purchase the equipment. Mayola bought
two generating sets and the necessary cabling, spending 14,400 baht, and had everything
