Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
build, starting from 1837, was cut from a point near the Mahakan Fort in Bangkok
through to the Bang Pa Kong River, in Chachoengsao Province, allowing large numbers
of troops and equipment to be transported by water to Cambodia. By the time Rama IV
came to the throne the canal was a more tranquil waterway, with an abundance of lotus
flowers growing in the waters and the mud in this area, and so the king named the new
palace he directed to be built here, on the canal bank, Sra Pathum Palace, or Lotus Pond
Palace. Alongside it he built a temple, Wat Pathum Wanaram. It is from the palace and
temple that Pathum Wan district takes its name.
Sra Pathum Palace was built for royal recreation in what was then open fields, and
today the royal estate here covers forty-three acres, although the palace and its grounds
covers only seventeen of them, the remainder of the land being leased to commercial
buildings, including Siam Paragon and CentralWorld. Before the recent developments the
Siam InterContinental Hotel and its gardens stood on this land. The hotel had opened in
1964, being one of the first of Thailand's new international hotels, and its gardens were
vast. No one realised quite how vast until the hotel was demolished about a decade ago,
and only then because the grounds could be seen from the Skytrain, itself completed
only a few years previously. The Skytrain also revealed Sra Pathum Palace, until the high
buildings were later erected, and until that time few people had actually seen it. Sra
Pathum, however, holds a very important place in Thai history. Here lived Queen Savang
Vadhana, twenty-seventh daughter of Rama IV , consort to Rama V , mother of Prince
Mahidol Adulyadej, and grandmother of both King Ananda Mahidol, Rama VIII , who died
at a young age in 1946, and King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX . The wedding of Prince
Mahidol and Princess Srinagarindra, the Princess Mother, took place here, and this is also
where they made their home. Here, too, took place the wedding of their son King Bhu-
mibol to Queen Sirikit in 1950. Prince Mahidol had died here in 1929, after which the
Princess Mother lived here as a widow until her own death in 1995. Queen Savang died
here in 1955 at the age of 93. Today, Sra Pathum Palace is the residence of Princess Maha
Chakri Sirindhorn.
Despite the solid wall of shopping malls along one half of Siam Square's northern side,
and the concrete beams of the Skytrain overhead, there is still a significant remnant of the
early days here, with the pink pastel wall of Wat Pathum Wanaram, lotus blooms in pan-
els along its length, and on top of the pillars. The temple was founded in 1857 by Rama
IV , when the only way to get here was by boat along the canal, and it is designated a royal
temple third class. The ashes of Prince Mahidol are buried here, along with those of the
Princess Mother, and amongst the buildings is a sala constructed from the crematorium
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