Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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 commem-
orate her fourth-cycle, forty-eighth birthday. The bridge had no name until the Pig Me-
morial 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 carefully
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
stand-
ing 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 broth-
er, 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
