Thailand Museums
Our Thailand museums post doesn’t pretend to be a ‘best of’ list – there are simply too many and obviously we haven’t visited every one – nor is it necessarily our 10 favourites (along the lines of our recent Cambodia museums and Vietnam museums posts). We’ll include a few of the most famous – mainly Bangkok and Chiang Mai – sites as well as suggesting a range of much lesser-known known ones, certain of which are very much off-the-beaten-track and very rarely visited by foreign tourists but which we’d say, are nevertheless well worth visiting.
Of course, Thailand is primarily known for the lush tropical islands and spectacular beaches of the south and the picturesque mountains with colourfully-clad hill-tribe minorities in the north, but, as a relatively large country with a well-funded Fine Arts Department, it also offers a large number, and wide range, of museums. The government infrastructure then is well developed and the majority of its 76 provincial capitals lay claim to a city museum of some kind or another, while numerous private initiatives cater to the busy tourist trade. Some of the former are of course more impressive than others, depending upon how rich the historical heritage of any given province is, as well, inevitably, on how enterprising the local authorities are. The latter category, not surprisingly, includes a large and eclectic assortment of themes.
Thailand museums. A few of the myriad artefacts on display at the Bangkok National Museum Bangkok
While Bangkok is consistently one of the World’s busiest tourist destinations, and this vast metropolis is consequently home to myriad museums, we very much doubt many visitors head there thinking, ‘wow, great – museums, museums!’. It is of course, known for markets and shopping, street life and street food and cafes, bars and nightlife, while many of those visitors to the capital are merely transiting on the way south or north, or even to Laos or Cambodia, anyway. Its museum offerings are well covered elsewhere, so we’ll mention a couple of the best-known, before moving on to some further-flung provincial suggestions.
1 The National Museum
The Bangkok National Museum is of course the Thai Fine Arts Department’s flagship and is conveniently located over the road from the much-visited Royal Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. (Although that complex does house various exhibitions, we’re considering it an historic site rather than museum per se.) The Museum includes displays artefacts from a wide time range, including neolithic and Bronze Ages through Dvaravati, Lopburi, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya and Rattanakosin eras as well as objects from neighbouring cultures such as Srivijaya or Bagan. (Note, the 11th to 12th centuries, era when much of what is today eastern and central Thailand was part of the Angkor empire, is referred to by Thais as the Lopburi period.) A full visit would require the best part of a couple of hours but It certainly provides a relatively compact and comprehensive, potted history of the country, even if some of the inevitably rather chauvinistic commentaries need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
2 Jim Thompson House
This private museum, centrally located close to Siam Square, is the former mansion of American entrepreneur, collector, silk magnate and spy Jim Thompson. A complex, sometimes controversial and occasionally mysterious character whose disappearance while on a stroll in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands remains, to this day, unsolved. When not busy working for the OSS (forerunner to the CIA) and amassing his collection of Southeast Asian artefacts and objets d’art, (some with decidedly dubious provenances), he is considered to have single-handedly resurrected the Thai silk industry. You can therefore see the collection in his traditional-style teak mansion, have lunch in the rather over-priced cafe and buy a very over-priced silk scarf as well. The building is beautiful, the collection impressive and the location convenient so it is certainly worth a visit if you have time in Bangkok.
Part of the Jim Thompson cafe and garden. (Photography inside is prohibited.) Chiang Mai
Thailand’s second city’s principal museums form a cluster in the centre of the Old Town and indeed you can buy a single entry ticket which covers the Chiang Mai Historical Museum, Chiang Mai Arts and Cultural Centre and the Lanna Folklife Museum. (The Chiang Mai National Museum is slightly out of centre, located on the western side of the inner ring road.) There is a certain amount of crossover between history, culture and ‘folklife’ so we’ll group them as one listing to save space. There are a number of smaller, often quirky, museums in Chiang Mai you could take in depending upon your interests such as the Museum of World Insects, (slightly over-priced on our opinion), an entire museum dedicated to the god Ganesha, a Lanna textiles exhibition and an intriguing sounding Museum of Broken Relationships. (We’ve never made it to the latter but it is located in a well-restored old building on Tha Pae Road so pop in if you have time and let us know.)
3 The City Museum Complex
The principal museums are located around the Three Kings Monument in the centre of the old town with the restored ancient courthouse home to the Lanna Folklife display and the splendid, former provincial hall housing the culture museum. The history collection is displayed in a new, purpose-built structure to the rear of the old hall. As we said you can obtain a very reasonably priced entrance ticket for all three together or each individually and if you opt for the former, visits can be spread over several days. If three’s too much we’d skip Folklife as the other two are particularly good and the culture exhibitions repeat a certain amount of the folklife anyway. Don’t miss the ruins of the old royal palace which were fortuitously discovered underneath the new History Centre building during construction and can now be viewed in a basement room.
The National Museum has seen a recent makeover and has plentiful, well-presented displays and dioramas but it does suffer from a poor location so unless you’re heading to the nearby historic Wat Jet Yot, it’s slightly awkward to get to. (Jet Yot’s good too so would make a worthwhile tuk-tuk ride if you can fit in both.)
A section of the infamous Hellfire Pass itself Thailand Museums – Provincial Sites
Broadly speaking, the busier the destination is in tourism terms, the more museums you’ll find, so towns like Phuket and Pattaya have an array of weird and wonderful establishments. (However, since we can’t seriously recommend either destination…) Additionally, as mentioned, most provincial capitals have reasonably funded and stocked museums, including those towns that receive next to no foreign visitors. (As you might guess, some of our favourite Thailand museums fall into the latter category.) We’ll begin with a couple of the better-known regional ones before moving on to the really obscure sites.
4 Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum or hellfire Pass Interpretive Centre
Kanchanaburi Province’s Hellfire Pass was one of the most infamous stretches of the Bangkok to Burma railway constructed by the Japanese army during WW2 using Allied prisoners of war and forcibly conscripted Asian workers. A large number of both, including many British and Australian soldiers, died during the forced labour and this location was chosen by the Australian Government as the site for a memorial/interpretative centre/museum. (The Hellfire name comes from the flaming torches which were used to light the site so work could continue at night.) The small museum is consequently well-funded and well-presented while you can also visit the nearby Pass itself as well as hike along a stretch of the route of the old railway. (The section of the railway between Bangkok and Sai Yok is still in use but Hellfire Pass lies slightly beyond this.)
5 The House of Opium and Hall of Opium
While these two separate museums, both situated in the small Chiang Rai town of Sob Ruak, come with confusingly similar names, time permitting, it’s worth taking in the pair as they do, more or less, approach the same subject from different angles. Although historically the Golden Triangle refers to a wide swathe of mountains in northern Thailand, northwestern Laos and Burma’s Shan State, the point where the three borders meet – in Sob Ruak – has been designated the Golden Triangle for tourism purposes, hence the museums.
The long-standing House of Opium is a charming, rickety old wooden structure crammed full of all things opium; weights, pipes and paraphernalia and information on the local hill-tribes who traditionally cultivated the poppies. The newer and fancier Hall, situated just outside of town, includes much of the above but also goes into the whole opium experience with plenty of dire warnings for anyone tempted. (Although clearly nobody involved had ever actually sampled any of the once ubiquitous resin.) The entrance features a 140 metre long dark tunnel which is supposed to simulate sinking into the abyss of opium addiction while there’s more general information on the history of opium in the region and elsewhere.
They’re both fun so given the time we’d suggest the two, but if you only do one then we have a distinct preference for the more standard museum-style House which comes without the unnecessary evangelical theme.
Opium smoking dummy at the House of Opium in Sob Ruak 6 Khun Sa Museum
Although continuing the opium theme, if you make it to the very off-the-beaten-track Khun Sa Museum, you’ll be one of only a handful to do so in any given month. Khun Sa was the most infamous of the opium warlords to operate in the Golden Triangle Region during the 1970s to mid 90s. He also doubled as the leader of the Mong Tai Army, an alliance of Shan groups fighting an independence war against the Burmese army, so his excuse was that the profits helped to fund the struggle. This explains why today, some see him as a courageous freedom fighter, despite for many years figuring on America’s most wanted list. (The history is complicated and while some aspects were touched on in our recent Here Be Dragons post, for now, we’ll just stick to the museum.)
The museum is located in Chiang Rai’s remote Thoet Thai, which previously went under the name of Hin Taek but was renamed after Khun Sa left in order to improve the town’s former sordid reputation. This was Khun Sa’s secret base before being subsequently opened as a museum. The various base buildings are collapsing and mold-covered and photos and exhibits coated in dust and damp but we do find it has a certain charm nonetheless and it is a significant historical site, even if it is a rather obscure period of history. The best bits are Khun Sa’s private quarters where you can see his collection of uniforms as well as everyday objects such as his toothbrush in addition to a frighteningly realistic dummy of the man himself. (We confess to actually having said hello to the figure behind the desk on our first visit.)
Krishna defeating a naga. Detail from a late 11th century lintel from Prasat Hin Phimai 7 Ban Chiang
Next, we’ll head right across the country from the mountains of Chiang Rai to the paddy-fields of Isan for something completely different; Ban Chiang National Museum. The archaeological site, situated in northeastern Udon Thani Province, revealed extensive vestiges from the neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages and has been UNESCO listed since 1992. The site itself holds nothing of interest to a casual observer but a large quantity of pottery and artefacts was unearthed and is now housed in a well laid-out adjacent museum. Bronze Age pottery is admittedly a somewhat niche subject, and the site is certainly well off-the-beaten-track, but some of the 3000 year old designs are astonishing and it does, after all, represent a World Heritage Site so, it has to be worth a look if you ever find yourself in those parts.
Krishna defeating a naga. Detail from a late 11th century lintel from Prasat Hin Phimai 8 Phimai National Museum
Quite why the spectacular late 11th to 12th century ruins of Prasat Phimai are not UNESCO-listed is beyond us as this is one of the best-preserved and most impressive ancient Khmer temples outside of Angkor itself. The temple was the centrepiece of ancient Vimayapura City which functioned as the Angkor Empire’s northern capital and in addition to the sanctuary itself, the city walls, gates, moats and many of the outlying structures are still intact. Needless to say, the nearby Phimai National Museum, run by the regional Fine Arts Department, has a wealth of spectacular artefacts, reliefs and statues to choose from for its displays. Despite an impressive recent makeover of the main exhibition halls, the number of artefacts still overflows into the gardens, carpark and supplementary hangars. A truly spectacular display yet on our last visit, we encountered two foreign tourists at the temple and zero in the museum.
While the temple is sometimes seen as a precursor to Angkor Wat itself, there are distinct and unique artistic elements to it, particularly in respect to the stunning, large-format, carved door lintels, which to our minds are unrivalled in other Angkorian temples. The museum’s collection of pediments and lintels, which also includes examples from other Khmer-period temples in the region such as Phanom Rung is second to none in Southeast Asia an a shoo-in on our Thailand museums list.
9 Prachinburi National Museum
This provincial museum, located in Prachinburi’s eponymous capital, is typical of many such sites across the country that have been set up by the Fine Arts Department. It’s modest in size, albeit well organised, with enthusiastic and helpful staff and a limited yet impressive stock of locally found artefacts. It’s not that easy to find and few domestic visitors go there let alone foreign ones. The area was key in early Khmer forays into the region with Jayavarman I establishing a city at the site today known as Muang Si Mahosot as early as the 7th century while the prestigious Angkor king Jayavarman VII was still establishing sanctuaries in what is now Prachinburi Province as late as the end of the 12th century. (See Prasat Sra Morakot.)
The museum is an just example of many similar sites across the country and we’re not saying this is necessarily the best but such initiatives deserve our support, the hidden away, albeit priceless, objects deserve to be admired and the often thankless staff deserve thanks.
These Shiva lingas dating to the 7th or 8th centuries are just a few of the objects unearthed in the area 10 Wat Thong Tua
Last but definitely not least on our Thailand museums list, is the quite extraordinary collection of ancient artefacts to be found in Chanthaburi Province’s Thong Tua Temple. The active Buddhist monastery is located within the confines of an ancient Angkorian and pre-Angkorian port which was occupied from around the 6th century until at least the early 10th. The principal remaining structures can be seen at the nearby site of Muang Paniat, while a large number of unearthed artefacts were transported to the wat for safekeeping and displayed for the benefit of visitors. The monks appear to have done such a good job that the Thai Fine Arts Department gave their blessing to the initiative and the wat’s museum was permitted to keep the majority of the exhibits.
Some of the impressive array of statuary, ancient pottery, carvings and inscriptions were found buried in muddy pools which explains the astonishing, near pristine condition of many pieces. A remarkable spot and, again, one that you’d certainly have all to yourself.
Meeting Abbot Phrakru Pimolkittisarn. This Buddhist monk has spent his life guarding an ancient carving While in Chanthaburi Province, we can’t finish our Thailand museums post without mentioning a second Buddhist wat in the same region, which, while not a museum as such, houses a spectacular 1500 year old carving. If anyone’s interested, a description of the monastery, artefact and abbot can be found in our earlier Guardian of the Stone post.
