Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
highly successful man. Louis was a frequent visitor to the Grand Palace, where Anna was
teaching the king's son, Chulalongkorn, and other royal and aristocratic children, and he
became a favourite of the king himself. Anna left Siam after five years and she sent Louis
to a boarding school in Ireland while she went on to America. Louis, now a strong young
six-footer, eventually made his way back to Siam. Rama
IV
was long dead by this time, hav-
ing contracted malarial fever while on a visit to Prachuap Khiri Khan province to observe
the solar eclipse, and Chulalongkorn was now Rama
V
. Reportedly, the king saw Louis
looming above a crowd and called out, “Hello, Louis, do you want a job?” Thus began a ca-
reer that saw Louis initially as the organiser of a royal cavalry guard, and later as the lead-
er of a security force protecting a surveying team that travelled to Luang Prabang, then
part of Siam, and which included Captain Bush's 21-year-old son, George. Louis eventu-
ally resigned his royal commissions and became an agent for the Borneo Company, based
at Nakhon Sawan, where the Chao Phraya begins, and where he was responsible for cor-
ralling the company's timber and floating it down the river in huge rafts to Bangkok. In
1904 he founded the Louis T Leonowens Company, which opened a godown near Captain
Bush's house. The company exists to this day, and is part of the American conglomerate
the Getz Group, specialising in chemicals, building and architectural materials, agricul-
tural equipment and firearms. The Louis T Leonowens logo is the Giant Swing, which was
restored in 1920 using teak from the company's estates.
There is a sharp bend in Captain Bush Lane, at the point where the road turns to the
right to follow the riverbank, and here a door is set in a high, blank white wall. This is the
entrance to the Portuguese Embassy Residence. The Portuguese had long enjoyed an ex-
ceptional relationship with Siam, remaining after most of the other Europeans had been
forced to leave in 1688, and in 1820 they were granted permission to build a
feitoria
, a
factory, along with a residence to allow a consul to be stationed in Bangkok, rather than
the Siamese having to deal with the governor of Macau or Goa. The residence for the first
consul, Carlos Manuel da Silveira, was a gracious one, but it was built of bamboo and
stucco, and quickly deteriorated in the hot and humid climate. Building began on the new
residence in 1860, with stone and glass being shipped in from Goa. Numerous interrup-
tions, including the sinking of an incoming ship carrying building materials, meant that it
took fifteen years to complete the building, but the result is the elegant two-storey struc-
ture that can be seen today. A 26-metre (85-ft) frontage has three huge arched windows
and a veranda flanks the upper floor. Blue and white ceramic tiles from Portugal decorate
the entrance, and a lawn leads down to the river's edge.
