Untangle the history of Thailand with the help of the thousands of artefacts and artistic-pieces exhibited in one of Bangkok's grandest and biggest palaces.
Thai's are proud of their history, and rightly so. The Kingdom of Siam has been around for 7 centuries, surviving invasion, civil war and the encroaching colonisation of the European powers. Unlike its neighbours, Thailand avoided becoming a colony of the French or British. But it's a long and tangled tale. One of the best places to follow it is the National Museum of Bangkok. Here thousands of magnificent artefacts and documents from Thailand’s long story are displayed in the beautiful surroundings of the 200-year old Wang Na Palace.
It is the largest museum in South East Asia, stretching over six grand and palatial buildings, and also one of its oldest – it became a museum in 1884, thanks to King Rama IV. The collections are organised into three main wings – history, decorative arts and archaeology. The history wing covers the tale of Thailand from pre-history to today's Chakri Dynasty, and the many kingdoms in between. You can learn about the Mon city-states of the Dvaravati period 1,000 years ago, and the Srivijaya sea-empire of the Malaysians, who ruled Thailand’s coastal cities from the 8th to 12th centuries.
The exhibits also touch on the brief flourishing of the Sukhothai kingdom under King Ramkhamhaeng and has an inscribed pillar said to mark the start of the Thai alphabet. And of course there's plenty of space given over to Ayutthaya, the Kingdom of Siam, founded in the 14th century and which tracks directly to modern-day Thailand. The arts collection covers an astonishing diversity of jewellery, murals, ceramics and musical instruments, from the Indian Gandhara, Chinese Tang, Cambodian Khmer and Vietnamese Cham periods. And you'll find one of the most revered images of the Buddha – the Phra Phuttha Sihing – in the restored Bhuddhaisawan Chapel.
There's so much to see (and so few readable signs) that if you haven't got a day or two to wander around this huge complex, a tour guide makes a lot of sense. It's free, takes a couple of hours, and will put two-thousand years of Thai history at your finger-tips. You'll find the museum in the old city, close to the Grand Palace on Na Phrat Thai ring road.
