Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
quer their own enemies and troubles. Monks and lay workers reside in the teak houses and
more modern structures in the leafy courtyards, some of the old buildings having been
destroyed by a stray Allied bomb during World War
II
., intended for Bangkok Noi Railway
Station. Inside the
ubosot
are two huge elephant tusks, and a corresponding pair made of
ebony, placed in front of the golden Buddha image.
Khao San spreads northeast as far as Tani Road, a Muslim district that derives its name
from Pattani, the province in the south of Thailand that has a large population of Muslims.
They settled here in the early nineteenth century following the quelling of an uprising by
Pattani against Siamese rule. Craftsmen and traders, the immigrants brought with them
skills in making gold and silver ornaments, rings, bands and bracelets. They built Chaka-
pong Mosque, which can be seen down Surao Lane, a footpath off Chakapong Road. Tani
Road ends at a small square that was until 1963 the terminus for the little yellow tramcars
that plied this route. Pocket Park, which forms a pleasant refuge in the square, was laid
out in 1976, its odd lozenge shape due to the former canal whose course it occupies.
The canal had run in front of Wat Bowon Niwet, a temple with a dazzling history and
a dazzling collection of art and architecture. Built between 1824 and 1832 in the reign
of Rama
III
by Prince Phra Bowon Ratchao on a royal cremation ground, the temple was
directly adjacent to Wat Rangsi, built a few years earlier, and the two were later merged.
The first abbot of the new temple (its nickname is Wat Mai, which means exactly that)
was Prince Mongkut, who took up his position in 1836. Mongkut had been ordained in
1824, at age 20, having been sidelined in his succession to the throne by his half-broth-
er, and as he travelled the country as a monk he became increasingly concerned at the
relaxation of the rules of the Tipitaka amongst the Siamese monkhood. In 1833 he initi-
ated the Thammayut reform movement, which aimed to make monastic discipline more
orthodox and to remove the animist and superstitious elements that had been assimilated
into Siamese Buddhism over the years. As abbot of Wat Bowon he was able to promul-
gate those ideas, and the temple remains the centre of the Thammayut Nikaya school of
Theravada Buddhism to this day, the seat of the Supreme Patriarch. Monks from all over
Thailand and from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka all come to study here. During his time as
a monk, Prince Mongkut developed what was to be a lifetime interest in Western know-
ledge, studying Latin, English and astronomy, and becoming close friends with Jean-Bap-
tiste Pallegoix, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bangkok, whom he invited to
preach Christian sermons in the temple. When, after twenty-seven years in the monk-
hood, and following the death of his half-brother Mongkut became King Rama
IV
, his
knowledge of the West was to have a profound influence upon the future of Siam, partic-
