National Museum

In a city as vibrant and throbbingly alive as Bangkok, visiting museums can sometimes seem to be rather…beside the point. Redundant. You don’t need to go to some sterile, airconditioned institution to see culture, there are more interesting things to see on a walk to the local 7-11.  That was what I thought anyway. And even after my seventh visit to Bangkok, I had never been to the National Museum until the the other day – but I immediately recognised my mistake.  It is simply one of the most beautiful places in the city.

Despite its plum location between the Khao San Road backpacker ghetto and the Royal compound on the side of the (currently-closed-for-renovations) Sanam Luang, you get the feeling that the museum doesn’t get the visitor numbers it deserves, bypassed in the rush to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Royal Palace.

What many tourists probably don’t realise (I didn’t) is that the museum is part of the palace – this was once the “Front Palace” where the King’s brother lived (all the better to keep an eye on him during royal intrigues). The buildings themselves therefore, are beautiful. There are steep roofs and glittery eaves, quiet courtyards, high-ceilinged rooms and airy chambers, and unlike the antisceptic museums in many Western countries, open windows and fans whirring . And everywhere is filled with beautiful pieces of wood carving, ivory, limbless and headless Buddhas from Lopburi and Cambodia, graceful kinarree and apsara (the heavenly nymphs), ferocious bird-faced watchmen and astonishing scenes of gold on lacquer depicting birds, butterflies and the Himappan forests on the slopes of Mt Meru at the centre of the world, where beautiful women blossom as fruit on strange trees, and all kinds of mystical creatures frolic.

The most impressive exhibit is the royal funeral chariots; huge, lumbering, glittering things carved with innumerable golden naga serpents heads and flashing in the sunlight. They were last carted through the city streets in 1985 for the death of the Queen Mother. Although the most impressive chariots are housed in a special “stable” where photography is not allowed, smaller (yet still lovely) examples lie around the museum, “resting” under the wide eaves on creaking verandahs.

I got to the museum just thirty minutes before closing and actually I’d like to go again, take a book, and just spend a day wandering around and relaxing in those leafy courtyards with the tropical birds calling in the trees.

As I left there was another sound – little girls taking Thai classical musical lessons on the lawn, with the pling of their xylophones drifting through the chapels and the chambers and the sala (open-sided pavilions) as the sun set.