Home > Travel Writing > Thailand’s Teak Palace

It was built for women only. It boasted the first light-bulb in Thailand, as well as the first indoor plumbing. And a hundred years on, these three storeys of immortal splendour in rare golden teak are held together by nothing more than an elegant arrangement of wooden pegs. There is literally not an ounce of iron in the superstructure.

This special lightness and grace is easily picked up in the atmosphere. On the upper floors especially, you feel you are touching hands with the great teak-forests of Thailand’s High North. At the same time, you notice a strong European influence - a touch of the Habsburg hunting-lodge - that curiously does nothing to dilute its exotic appeal.

What, where and why, then, is the Vimanmek Palace ?

Probably the biggest all-wooden building on earth (certainly in teak), and beyond question the grandest and most inspiring.

It all started with an enlightened king, Rama V, who originally commissioned a summer palace all in teak, to be built on the Royal holiday island of Ko Sichang in the Gulf of Siam.

Owing to a very rare case of confrontation with French colonists in 1893 (Thailand has never been colonised, owing to skilful diplomacy), the island was considered too vulnerable for Royal occupation, and the project was abandoned halfway.

Meanwhile in Bangkok the king was busy converting an area of farmland called Dusit, to the North of the Old City, into a new Royal Quarter, with boulevards, botanical gardens and a big palace complex. Remembering his half-built and deserted teakwood mansion on Ko Sichang, he ordered it to be dismantled and re-erected here in Dusit Park.

Indeed this new timbered masterpiece was to be his principal residence - along with his Queen, his daughters and his concubines. Built for love, we might say. And who can tell us that this spirit does not show up in the fine harmony of its design ?

Certainly it is impossible to exaggerate the cool dignity of this shaded mansion in the heart of Thailand’s huge sweltering capital. Every line of the architecture tends to charm and soothe. The deep satisfying curve of the throne-hall... the handsome octagonal wing that was the king’s private quarters... endless tiered galleries with fretwork delicate as lace... the slender cream arches of the waterside pavilion.

Surrounded by water on all sides - Jade Basin and the Channel of the Fragrant Wood - Vimanmek stands like a finely-carved jewel-case, with all the treasures of Europe and the East twinkling within, under cut-crystal lamps.

It is these furnishings and objets d’art that really provide the cosmopolitan flavour, and only the super-connoisseurs are going to grumble about a hotch-potch of styles. The rest of us are free to marvel at this golden gallery of official gifts presented to the most cosmopolitan of kings.

The era would have had something to do with it, a forty-two year reign ending in 1910 - a particularly good time to collect furniture, porcelain and glass. And King Rama was just as keen on travelling to Europe as European envoys were to visit the fabled kingdom of Siam (as Thailand was still named.)

So here are gilt cabinets flanked by the great mounted tusks of another age, fluted dressing-tables topped with vintage perfume-sprays, enamelled bowls with nuts and grapes in filigreed silver, the inevitable Fabergé egg, a parade of every cherished style from Ming to Art Nouveau. There is even crockery of a different shade for each day of the week.

But this was not mere ostentation. Homes can reveal much about their occupants, and life at Vimanmek was much more than just showing off. It was the wholehearted celebration of arts, crafts and sciences by a monarch passionately concerned with bringing his country into the modern day.

So for example, of the thirty rooms of your tour, each with its individual character, one is dedicated to astronomy, with the original telescopes still pointing to the window in a spirit of hopeful quest. Another displays the first typewriter ever to reproduce the Thai alphabet. And a hand-carved grand piano dominates the Music Room, where great concerts were held, and where a court choir once brought solace to the king while he was recovering from malaria. It is wonderful to imagine fine music echoing softly around these timbered walls.

We need not dwell on the fortunes of Vimanmek after the king’s premature death, lamented everywhere. His successors moved into newer and more sumptuous palaces where they still live today; incredibly, the magical Vimanmek became no more than a stockroom for the Royal family’s administrative bureau, narrowly missing serious damage from a wartime incendiary bomb. Not until 1982 did the present Queen Sirikit decide to restore the palace to its full splendour and open it to the public in time for Bangkok’s bicentenary celebrations.

The refurbishment was a triumph of good workmanship, fully in line with the original, as we can tell from the only room - Bronze Room, second floor (or first floor, as we would call it) - whose earlier paintwork has been left untouched, showing virtually no deterioration, only some fading. Such craftsmanship is a joy to contemplate, and we can see why the king wrote so enthusiastically after the opening in summer 1901 “I very much enjoy living here. If I were still at the Grand Palace, I would be finding the heat unbearable.”

Today’s visitors are not allowed to forget that this palace is still Royal. Casual dress is discouraged. Shoes and cameras must be left outside. And in the throne-room, you must touch the carpet with your head (or near enough!) as a mark of respect. Also there is no lingering to admire your favourite gold snuff-box or hand-painted Viennese decanter. Your one-hour English-language tour must be conducted punctually, in sequence, and within your own group. But it is one hour of glory.

And in this centenary year in particular, it is fitting to salute the palace of a hundred windows and a hundred doors. Constructed all of golden teak, with its precious oil that defies both rain and sun as well as destructive insects, perhaps it may one day celebrate its millennium.

Vimanmek Palace and Dusit Park

Bangkok’s refreshingly cool and elegant suburb of Dusit Park is worth a full day’s sightseeing, with museums dedicated to Royal coaches, clocks and photography, a major gallery of Thai crafts and a landscaped zoo, in addition to the splendid palace complex. The Royal white elephants - a highly-prized species - can often be seen in the nearby grounds of the reigning monarch’s own permanent residence, the Chitrlada Palace.

The Vimanmek Palace is open to the public from 9.30am to 3.15pm daily, including weekends and public holidays, with English-language tours every half-hour. The main frontage is best photographed in the morning sun.

The water-pavilion is used as a miniature outdoor theatre with displays of traditional Thai folk-dancing at 10.30 and 2.00, followed by a comic performance of costumed monkeys. The wide steps down from the first floor make a natural tiered auditorium.

Read more travel writing by Jonathan Begg