[The List] - National Museum

On Wednesday morning, Charnice and I awoke ridiculously early (aka 8 AM) to go visit the National Museum. We had heard there were English tours starting at 9:30, and we wanted to leave at least an hour to get there (if you've seen Bangkok traffic, you understand). After hailing a few taxis who either did not know where it was, or didn't want to go there, we finally got an amenable driver and were on our way. Surprisingly, it only took us half an hour to get there.

Because we were wearing our Chula uniforms, we got in for free (and looked like complete idiots when the ticket man told us that, in Thai, and we had no clue what he was saying). We had half an hour to kill, so we started wandering through the first building, which covered Thailand's history from prehistoric times to presumably modern day. I got as far as 1300 AD before it was time to go.

The tour was given by Sharon, an Australian expat who has lived in Thailand for five years. The two hour tour focused exclusively on Buddhism, which was a fascinating introduction. She led us through various aprts of the museum, tracking down different artifacts and images to illustrate her lecture.

The museum is housed in what used to be the auxillary palace. As I understand it: the system used to be that there was the main king, and then the secondary king who was next in line for the succession, and had his own palace. Then the system changed to a king and a crown prince as successor, and the old second palace was turned into a museum.

We were not allowed to take photographs inside the buildings, and inside the compound it was discouraged (as in, Sharon did not know for certain if we were allowed to take photos of the outside of the buildings inside the palace proper, and we didn't want to get her in trouble). Because I don't have the images to accompany all the facts she gave us, I won't recount them all here - plus I don't remember them all. The temples and Grand Palace, which we will probably visit next weekend, allow photos and have a lot of similar images, however, so I will add historical commentary when we go there.

What I do know and remember from the tour:
In traditional buildings, the demonic figure on the awning is called...something like Garoud, I believe. I cannot look it up right now because of the faulty internet (even at school...I swear the internet is conspiring against me here). It is supposed to represent the sky. Then the decorations that look like fingers coming up from the roof represent Naga, the seven-headed earth snake, in a very stylized form.
(You can see the snake things - the gold pointy bits - in the picture at left. I don't think it's a good enough picture to see the sky demon).

I have some other pretty, miscellaneous pictures I've taken of Bangkok, but they will have to wait for a better internet connection than I have today. I'll probably make a large, picture heavy post sometime in the near future.

Until then, happy Friday from 90-feels-like-94 degree Bangkok (and the sad part is, it felt comfortable today).