Thread: The Cable Car Temple of Bang Pa-In Mini-Day Trip.

Was recommended to me by Sir Bonglek on thailandchatter. Think his username is Bangyai on TD. Top chap all round.


A nice little half day break to get out of the big bad city.

Around 2/3rds of the way to Ayuthaya is Bang Pa-In. Famous for the big Summer Palace grounds with the gardens, lakes, temples and buildings.


https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ba...!4d100.5791561

Across to an island where Wat Niwet Thammaprawat is situated is where things get interesting.


How on Earth do you get across, I hear you ask.

There's no bridge.

No ferry.


Do you swim? Surf? Make a raft? How do you do it?


Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the Cable Car of Death.


Or maybe not.



The lighthouse will keep you safe if you're Dillinger and coming up on one of your yachts.



Oddly enough I did contemplate taking up religion when I first saw it in action.





Rumour has it that the monks used to pull the cars across, but they've since been replaced by machinery which allows them to spend their time nearly running over people with their golf-carts.

Can lift up the sign and jimmy the lock with yer car keys.

Made 73 baht and a lollipop wrapper.





Got a wheelchair if you're too fat to walk or you just want to fry an egg.



Taking a break from golf-cart racing.

Cashing in me Bitcoins in December to buy a boat.



And finally, the crown jewel.

A temple that looks like a church.




Fishlocker donated this. Neville will inform us of the historical details.

Whoa. Far out duude.











Got it up on 2 wheels going 'round that.




Someone isn't on the South Beach Diet.



Told the sproglette that's the ghost one.



Okay for a half a day on a Monday when the Planetarium on Sukhumvit is closed.

Velly nice, signor Luigi. Grazie.

I think I would ride that temple/ cable car, but I'd be mighty glad that I know how to swim!

Cool thread and pics Lulu, cheers for sharing.

Originally Posted by katie23

Velly nice, signor Luigi. Grazie.

I think I would ride that temple/ cable car, but I'd be mighty glad that I know how to swim!

The clang and wallop when it slams into the docking station at 13,000 kph doesn't inspire much confidence, to be honest.


Would be surprised if a limb hasn't been lost while trying to step onto it.


Still, nothing ventured nothing gained, and limbs grow back.

Great pics and narrative, Lu. Never heard about this place before, although occasionally up there in Bang Pa In at a couple of power plant customers. Will try and get to get there next time round.
Cheers.

Great thread Luigi.

Hope your limbs made it safely to the other side. :->

Welcome ladies and gentlemen.







Searching for some info on the Loftus Siam 1878 sundial, and some info on it here:

https://www.pressreader.com/thailand...85087045101749

Lt. Col Alfred Loftus of the Siam Navy presented it to King Rama V (Chulalongkorn)


More info appreciated. Cheers.

Close to the rather anodyne temple you have just visited is wat pai long wua.

it is anything but anodyne and well worth a visit to see its thousands of buddha statues and its gory horror park with its scary bloodthirsty depictions of afterlife tortures.

Originally Posted by taxexile

Cheers, will make sure to bring the 5 yr old girl to there.

There's a similar one is Sisaket.



Probably similar ones all over. They do like a bit of gore.

Cheers, will make sure to bring the sproglette to there.

thais take their kids to see these statues, and can be seen sternly lecturing them to the effect that if they dont behave and lead a "godly" life, then this is what will happen to them afterwards.

the rancid gangrenous dick and scrotum statue is as a result of infidelity and philandering, not that you need to be concerned of course.

^

Luigi's genitals will look so atrocious and raw that his fellow afterlifers will think he's still posting on a cooking thread.

Unsubstantiated rumour and nothing more.

Throw 'em on, if they cry they cry.

Great thread, Lu, keep em coming




















Another 2 places for the swerve list

You know me, anything to help out.

The temple was made in Gothic style. I believe after Rama V visited Europe.

Its one of only 16 (I think) temples that receive royal offerings during a festival at the end of the rainy season.

Interesting, cheers.


Any info on this guy?

Lt. Col Alfred Loftus of the Siam Navy presented it to King Rama V


He's not Jeff's grandfather, is he?

https://www.search.birminghamimages....e=2&ThemeID=65

Date:January - September 1899 (c.)


Description:By the demise on the 29th ult, of Captain Alfred John Loftus, F.R.G.S, Handsworth has lost one of the most picturesque of her residents. (Captain Loftus lived at 6 Grosvenor Road).


He was born at Darlington, Lancaster, sixty-three year ago, and early in life evinced an undoubted love of the sea. At the age of thirteen he joined the frigate ship “Pekin” of Newcastle-on-Tyne and as a midshipman he served on board this ship nearly six years. This, his first vessel carried troops from Madras to Burmah at the outbreak of war there and subsequently it was stranded and locked up in ice during a whole winter near the Hudson Bay Company’s Territory in the Columbia River. Its crew were afterwards engaged in taking out colonists to New Zealand. In due course our young sailor visited the Australian Colonies, the South American ports and the Guano Islands. It was while visiting the Sandwich Islands that he became acquainted with King Kamy Kamya, who gave his new acquaintances a crew of fishermen in order to bring back to Newcastle the old ship “Pekin”.


As chief officer in London vessels, Captain Loftus, as he then became, made many voyages to different parts of the world and finally settled in the east. In 1857 he lifted a sunken vessel in the harbour of Amdy and was her commander in several trading voyages to the Eastern Archipelago. This was his first commandership. Since the period named, Captain Loftus made Singapore his home and port for some years sailing thence to all ports in the Indian, Chinese and Japan seas. In 1866 he visited his native country, remaining in it a little over a year. Next we find him leaving the old country in a schooner of 125 tons with four seaman and one mate for India, whence he sailed into his old cruising grounds in the Eastern Seas until 1870. “Then” says this gallant officer, “came the turning point of my fortunes. My little vessel was captured and burnt by pirates on the coast of Hainin and I lost all - all I had in the world; I had not a dollar at my disposal.” Happily succour was nigh. He again got afloat and taking charge of the steamship “Viscount Canning” just returned from Abyssinian War, he sailed away for Siam and joined the government service there under the Regent, His Grace Somdetch Chow Phya Suriyewongse, as hydrographer, a position he held until 1891. In 1871 he commanded the gunboat “Regent” with Sir Thomas George Knox, H.B.M’s Minister, on a visit to India, with the King of Siam, the royal yacht and other vessels joining in the squadron.


The official position of Captain Loftus in Siam consisted of surveying the coasts and rivers, telegraph and railway routes and the superintending of observatory building for noting eclipses. In the year 1883 he accompanied the French Expedition under Commandant Bellion for the purpose of making an examination and survey of the Kra Pass portion of the Peninsula with the object of cutting a canal. As far as could be made out, this was not altogether the secret aim of the French and while they made their survey, Sir Alfred made his and published it as a member of the Royal Geographical Society. The British Government and the Press accorded with his views as to the practicability of the Canal and as he took care to get the facts known before the French had completed their calculations, the whole project collapsed. Sir Alfred Loftus, who by permission of Her Majesty the Queen ranked as a Knight Commandant and held a document we have seen with the royal sign-manual to this effect, was the head of his department for some years prior to the period of his resignation. It was with regret that the King, who is a most enlightened ruler, accepted his resignation. He was a Knight Commandant of the Crown of Siam, as Phra Nidesa Jalahdi.


In the Jubilee year of 1887 Captain Alfred Loftus attended a Queen’s levėe at St. James’. Among honours awarded by the King of Siam is a gold medal, the occasion of its presentation being the confirmation of the title of the Crown Prince of Siam and claim as the future sovereign of the shores of the Meinam.


As an author of geographical and topographical works Captain Loftus was an accredited authority and his works have done much towards revealing the richness of the products of his adopted country. He published several maps of Siam and its dependencies and included in the same the projected railway lines and telegraph lines. As is well known the capital of Siam is Bangkok a city as large as Birmingham, founded in 1782; the ancient capital of the sovereignty was Ayuthia. All the publications are exceedingly interesting, some of them giving us a brief history of Siam and its Kings, with many of the reforms granted by his majesty twenty-seven years ago, including religious liberty to all and the right to wear the hair as Europeans wear it, instead of enjoining the shaving of all but the old-fashioned brush or tuft usually grown on the forepart of the head. The Kingdom of Siam is now included in the Postal and Parcel Union; it has its Telephonic Exchange and during the last ten years an Electric Lighting Company has been established within the capital. The Government have European printing presses for educational and other purpose. Amongst the natural productions of the country are teak, rice, hides, teelseed, pepper and dyewoods. There are two or three native and two European journals in Bangkok. The Bangkok Times is printed in English and dates its first issue from January 1887. The opposition newspaper is The Siam Mercantile Gazette, published by a German. One of Captain Loftus’ pamphlets contains an extract from Sir John Bowring’s “Treaty of Friendship and Commerce between Great Britain and Siam, 1856” and also an appendix refuting several of the charges brought against the Siamese King by Mr Holt S Hallett and lastly, a list of articles exported from Siam.


Captain Alfred Loftus has been a most devoted servant to Siam and not only to Siam but to Great Britain likewise, so far as joint interests are concerned. He has in his career experienced many dangers both on land and sea and has known what it was to face many cyclones, the most terrible of which were those of the 21st October 1861 and the 1st November 1867, when 30,000 small dwellings were unroofed, crops in Lower Bengal destroyed and many vessels wrecked, in fact, torn to shreds. On one occasion, when seriously ill the foreign minister, a brother of the King, Prince Drumaluong Devawongse, sent his own physician to attend him and as it was feared he would succumb to his malady the King had a handsome coffin made for the reception of his remains. Fortunately he did not require the chest of honour for he recovered, much to the delight of his King and his friends in Europe.


Captain Loftus was the Inventor of the “Loftus Patent Glycerine Lamp” which has been introduced to many eminent authorities and is used largely by steam shipping companies. It is highly commended by nautical men. He also invented a new kind of sun dial for the royal gardens of the King. It is known by the name of the Royal Cylinder Axis Sun Dial and has attracted considerable notice. The Graphic gave an account of it we believe some years ago; and models of it have been sent to Germany and Italy. The idea occurred to Captain Alfred in a quiet moment on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Siam, that by trapping a sunbeam he could obtain local apparent time within 28 seconds of the truth. Since his last return to England about 1890-91 Captain Loftus has been engaged in working out the problem of securing a more powerful and perfect medium of signals for the merchants and railway services and his efforts have been highly successful. He was well versed in the Malay languages and his connection with Siam for upwards of twenty-five years has tended to increase the bonds of friendship between Great Britain and Siam.

^ Excellent. Cheers TizMe.