the ‘flooded’ Ayutthaya, Thailand

Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767.

Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese (Annamese), Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the capital, also called Ayutthaya.

In the sixteenth century, it was described by foreign traders as one of the biggest and wealthiest cities in the East.

The court of King Narai (1656–88) had strong links with that of King Louis XIV of France, whose ambassadors compared the city in size and wealth to Paris.

By 1550, the kingdom’s vassals included some city-states in the Malay Peninsula, Sukhothai, and parts of Cambodia.

According to foreign accounts, Ayutthaya was officially known as Siam, but many sources also say that the people of Ayutthaya called themselves Tai, and their kingdom Krung Tai or ‘the Kingdom of the Tais’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayutthaya_Kingdom

Chiang Mai – Kad Luang and Kad Ton Lum Yai – by Boonserm Satrabhaya

Via: Picture Lanna

1953

‘Aerial View 0f Kad Luang – Kad Ton Lum Yai’

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February 13, 1968

‘Chaos’

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‘After the fire burned down Kad Luang and Kad Ton Lan Yai, the villagers were forced to display their goods  on the pavement in from of the market.’

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The website has many wonderful photos by Khun Boonserm; as well as, I believe, the best ‘English language’ history of modern day Chiang Mai.

http://library.cmu.ac.th/ntic/en_picturelanna/picture_trails.php

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1960 – Chiang Mai – Chang Phuek Gate

1923

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1960

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September, 2006

Via: Chiang Mai Mail 

The recent damage that occurred with the collapse of the city wall at Chiang Puek Gate, the city canal and the pagoda at Phan Own Temple has made everyone realize the vulnerability of important historical structures in the city.

The damage was caused by the recent heavy rains seeping into cracks and open joints in the ancient masonry, and the weight of water accumulating inside the structure finally causing catastrophic collapse.

Read more, HERE:

http://www.chiangmai-mail.com/205/news.shtml

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2011

‘The gate has been repaired and looks much better than it did in 2006.’

revision 1: ‘The gate has been repaired and looks better than it did in 2006.’

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Chiang Mai floods

1952

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1965

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2005

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I arrived in Chiang Mai in August 2005, jus’ in time for the first of three floods.

The newspapers described the first flood, as a ‘fifty-year’ event.

I did not see how they described the subsequent floods, but possibly they wrote ‘em up as ‘two-week’ events; don’t know.

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I haven’t regretted my decision to rent an apartment on the 5th floor, at least not yet.

Chiang Mai – The Youngest Operative: A Tale of Initiative Behind Enemy Lines During WW II

Via: Central Intelligence Agency

Pridi Panomyong, the leader of World War II’s anti-Japanese Free Thai Movement once said that the Free Thai were not only those formally inducted into the movement, but all Thai who helped in the effort against the Japanese occupiers.

This is the story of one such Free Thai, perhaps the youngest of them all. Orachun Tanaphong was a 12-year old in 1944 when he became a courier and carried medicines and messages to Allied POWs held in a temple compound in Northern Thailand. This story of his adventures is based on his recollections of those events.

By mid-1943, Allied aircraft bombed targets in Thailand with regularity, striking at concentrations of Japanese troops. The city of Chiang Mai became a primary target. It was close to Burma, and the city’s railroad station was the northern terminus of Thailand’s railroad system that extended out from Bangkok and its port. The railroad became the primary means for the Japanese to move troops, weapons and supplies around Thailand, and most importantly, north to Chiang Mai to support the Japanese Army’s campaign in Burma.

On 21 December 1943, Allied bombers hit Chiang Mai’s railway station in a massive raid. The station and the neighborhoods around it were destroyed. More than 300 Thai civilians were killed. Among the dead and injured were Orachun’s relatives. The city’s hospitals were crowded with the injured, and Buddhist temples were used to treat the overflow. More bombings followed, and Orachun’s father decided to move the family into the countryside, where they could live in relative safety until the situation improved.

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When some of the POWs who had regularly visited the shop dropped out of sight, Orachun’s father learned that they were sick and were left behind in the camp. Malaria was rife in Chiang Mai at that time. It could be controlled with quinine, but the POWS were getting nothing to keep them healthy. Orachun’s father decided to try to get medicine, some fruit, and even some cigarettes into the camp. It would have to be done secretly. The obvious choice of a courier was the 12-year-old Orachun.

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Read the rest of this amazing story, HERE:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol52no3/historical-intelligence-vignette.html

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photo:

A year after the war, Orachun’s family was awarded a plaque by the British government. (In the picture to the right, the young Orachun is standing over his father’s left shoulder, with his brother next to him.)

Orachun finished his studies in Bangkok and won a scholarship to study in Madrid. He returned to Thailand, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and went on to a distinguished career as a diplomat.

He served as Thailand’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, Portugal, Mexico, and Central America. Today he is an associate judge at the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court in Bangkok.

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Time Magazine – May 27, 1966

cover story: ‘Thailand: Holder of the Kingdom, Strenth of the Land’

Seen on a soft spring night, the luminous spires of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha seem to float over Bangkok scarcely touched by the blare of traffic, the neon slashes of bars and the ragged hurly-burly of mainland Southeast Asia’s largest city. So too does the Kingdom of Thailand, proud heir to virtually SEVEN CENTURIES of uninterrupted independence, seem to soar above the roiling troubles of the region all around it.

Neighboring Laos is half in Communist hands, Cambodia hapless host to the Viet Cong, Burma a xenophobic military backwater. The Chinese talons are less than 100 miles away, North Viet Nam a bare 20 minutes as the U.S. fighter-bombers fly from their Thai bases. Everywhere on the great peninsula, militant Communism, poverty, misery, illiteracy, misrule, and a foundering sense of nationhood are the grim order of the Asian day.

With one important exception: the lush and smiling realm of Their Majesties King Bhumibol (pronounced Poom-ee-pone) Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit, which spreads like a green meadow of stability, serenity and strength from Burma down to the Malaysian peninsula—the geopolitical heart of Southeast Asia.

Read more, HERE:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835641,00.html

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