Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and his entourage were accommodated at Saranrom. A couple of years later, Prince Deva-
wongse, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, requested permission to open an office in the
palace, and for several years it performed a dual function as Foreign Office and state ac-
commodation. Prince George of Greece stayed in 1890, and the Tsarevitch of Russia in
1893. When the Siamese government was reorganised along Western lines in 1892, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs was greatly expanded and eventually came to occupy most of
the building. Directly behind the palace and originally part of the palace complex is a sep-
arate building, also European in style, built in 1892 and which used to be home to the Mil-
itary Academy. This was relocated in 1931, and the building now houses the Royal Survey
Department.
The pavilion in Saranrom Park, where Rama VI enjoyed listening to military bands.
Prince Oscar, writing home whilst on his Siamese visit, was greatly impressed by the
“beautiful garden and zoo with deer, monkeys, a black tiger, and many other animals and
birds”. Rama
V
had in fact designed the gardens specifically with the idea of impressing
visiting Western royalty and statesmen, as he manoeuvred to avoid the fate of being col-
onised by proving to the world that Siam was a sovereign and civilised nation. Henry Ala-
baster, a multi-talented British diplomat and engineer who had been one of the first to
arrive at the court of Siam and who had been engaged as advisor to Rama
V
, had laid out
the gardens, and they remain today a beautifully evocative landscape of the middle years
of the fifth reign.
The gardens became Saranrom Park in 1960, a public garden with a botanical park, a
large pond, pavilions, and a traditional teak house. Rather strangely, they are set to the side
of the palace, but this is explained by the fact that the main entrance was originally on the
south side of the building, directly facing the gardens: Rama
V
, on his first visit to Europe
in 1897, had invited many members of European royalty to visit Siam, and in anticipation
he had the palace redesigned and the entrance moved to the side, facing the Grand Palace.
Entering the gardens today can be via the front, at Sanamchai Road, or through the huge
white wrought-iron gates that face the inner moat. Prince Vajiravudh, before he became
