Author’s Note
321 Words
Author’s NoteThe acute troubles in Siam over the frontiers in 1893 gradually subsided. In 1897 King Chulalongkorn and Queen Saowabha visited Europe travelling there and back in the yacht Maka Chakri.
Their Majesties received a warm reception in France, which surprised them. In England they stayed at Buckingham Palace and, as the Queen was resting at Windsor in preparation for her Diamond Jubilee, they were received by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII).
The great success of the tour, which included Russia, Italy, Sweden and Belgium, was that the King was the first Asian Monarch who could talk to his hosts in English instead of through an interpreter.
Siam became Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, after the revolution of 1932, where the nations military staged a coup against the Monarchy and established a Constitutional style Monarchy. There was a brief return to using ‘Siam’ after World War II, but the new name for the country stuck and is what it is called today.
Thailand is still a Constitutional Monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The King of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion and the Defender of all Faiths.
When I was in Bangkok in 1982 I stayed at the new enlarged Oriental Hotel, which is now one of the best hotels in the world. The river from my balcony was as exciting and entrancing as it has been for centuries and the Floating Market just as colourful as I have described it.
Unfortunately I did not have enough time to search for the Temple paintings of the Jataka tales. But there is a beautiful book of them called the Ten Lives of The Buddha by A.B. Criswold, which shows them in all their glorious colour.
- Writer
