Thread: Memory Lane (In my own language)

The photo courtesy of ‘Page Siam Colorization by Noomrattana’ of which the original was shot in the reign of King Rama V shows four male prisoners. Each was bound around the ankles by weighted metal. Some of whom (except the left one, I think) were pulled by cords that wound around the waists.

Behind them was an old styled cement building. A number of large logs were scattering on the ground. This site was supposedly to be a place for their penal labors.

In the reign of King Rama V, the rules for the detention of prisoners were as follows:

Early in the morning – Unlocking the cells. Each prisoner came out to pour feces and filth. Taking shower, sweeping the cell and filling drinking water

8:00 a.m. – Eating breakfast
9:00 a.m. – Sending prisoners to work
4.00 p.m. – Finishing work, showering, eating dinner
5:00 p.m. – Locking up the cells


Each prisoner would receive these items from the government:

2 sets of shirts and pants
1 piece of loincloth (= pa kao ma)
1 blanket
1 pillow
1 sleeping mat
1 bucket for filth


Works acquired by these prisoners were mostly various civil works such as carrying soil or stones or bricks and stuff, making roads, making weaving machines, cooking and etc.

Anyway, in 1918, when King Rama VI began his project of founding the micro nation which was called “Dusit Thani” (page 43/1063), these prisoners were gathered to build the miniature of all sorts. It was said to be their pleasant moment.

(The colorized B&W photo courtesy of ‘Page Siam Colorization by Noomrattana’)


Queen Debsirindra (1834-1861), formerly known as Queen Ramphoei Phamaraphirom, born Princess Ramphoei Siriwong was the second consort of King Rama IV and mother of King Rama V.

The Princess was of Mon descent. When her father died at the age of only 27, her grandfather, King Rama III, took her and her sister to the Grand Palace and they were said to be his favorite grandchildren.

In 1853, Princess Ramphoei married her great-uncle, King Rama IV who was 30 years her senior and was elevated to become Queen Consort.

She had 4 children with the King.

After giving birth to her fourth child, the Queen’s health started to deteriorate.

King Rama IV wrote in a memoir about his wife's illness:

…She coughed and vomited blood. The doctor could still fix it. The symptoms gradually subsided, slightly bleeding. On the night of 8th September 1862, she said she was feeling better though still coughed but infrequently. Being able to sleep more. Fell asleep from 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. After waking up, she ate breakfast, a bowl of boiled rice. While sitting playing with her youngest son, she suddenly had a series of big coughs. Blood spurted out horribly through her nose and mouth leaving no access to breathe. Suddenly, her bounding pulse stopped…

The death of the Queen has started important customs such as the Foreign agencies expressed mourning by lowering the flag to half-mast for three days. During her funeral at the Grand Palace, a royal Chinese funeral rituals (Kong Tek) was added for the first time and black cloth was used to mourn the dead by decorating her crematorium at Sanum Luang field.

Prince Sithiporn Kridakara (1883 – 1971) was a nephew of King Rama IV, thus he was King Rama V’s cousin.

(Orange circle - The colorized B&W shows the Prince’s family)


For most of his early years, the Prince studied in England. After graduating mechanical engineering at City and Guild's Technical College, he came back home and worked at Ministry of Finance.

At 21, he married a woman who soon died but not without bearing a son. His second wife was Princess Sriphromma, daughter of the last hereditary chief of Nan. They produced two children.

While holding the position of the Director General of the Department of Treasury and Opium, in 1921 the Prince resigned to become a farmer. This interest came about due to his wife's fragile health which required the fresh air and open spaces of the countryside.

He bought a vast land in Bang Bird, Prachuab Khiri Khan Province and ventured in modern agriculture. A tractor was bought to help in the work. He set up a Leghorn (a chicken breed) farm which was the first time and also, developed watermelon farm until it became known nationwide as Bang Bird watermelon.

From the works in Prachuab Khiri Khan Province, the Prince moved north and developed Virginian tobacco which later on, has become an industry that generates income for farmers in the north.

In 1933, the Prince was caught up with a rebellion called Boworadet Rebellion which was led by his biological brother (1^st photo - green circle) and was sentenced to be imprisoned in Koh Tarutao (Tarutao Island, page 39/952).

He was pardoned by the King Rama VIII in 1944. Since he was not a key person, he was able to go back and work for the government holding the position of the Minister of Agriculture.

Prince Sithiporn successfully propagated the Nicholson Yellow Dent variety of corn which he encouraged other farmers to plant for animal feed. Starting in 1950 when rice was not favorable to land conditions, corn was planted instead. By the 1980s, corn became one of Thailand's major exports.

He was also instrumental in the establishment of an egg producers' association which made Siam an exporter of eggs.

When the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) established the International Rice Commission in 1949, Prince Sithiporn was elected as chairman. His suggestion for a research center for rice production during one of the meetings with the Rockefeller Foundation resulted in the establishment of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Laguna in the Philippines.

Prince Sithiporn has been known as Thailand's Farmer Prince who was awarded the 1967 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public service for his efforts in the development of Thai agriculture.

The Boworadet rebellion was a Siamese rebellion (unsuccessful coup d’état) led by a Siamese prince in 1933, in consequence of the conflicts between the previous royalist regime (those loyal to Chakri Dynasty's rule and King Rama VII) and the succeeding constitutional regime led by Khana Ratsadon ('People's Party'), following the Siam Revolution of 1932.

The counter-revolutionary rebellion that ensued, called National Salvation Group, led by Prince Boworadet (1877-1947) and other royalty, was often regarded as another royalist attempt to undermine the People's Party and its revolutionary government, because major participants had relations with royal family.

The rebels' chief motive declared in an ultimatum was their concern that the heads of the new government had "encouraged the people to despise the King Prajadhipok (Rama VII)..."

(Prince Boworadet (the colorized B&W photo), leader of National Salvation Group, in green circle)


By the end of October 1933, the Boworadet revolt was eventually defeated by the Siamese Government and the royalist rebellion was over.

The government broadcast a radio appeal to rebel troops to surrender and offered a ten thousand baht reward for the capture of Prince Boworadet.

On 25^th October, Prince Boworadet and his wife boarded a place and left Siam for Vietnam (then part of French Indochina).

When the news of his escape was known, Phya Sena Songgram, a member of the royal family who had commanded the First Army Corps before the revolution and later, one of the counter-revolutionary leaders whose task was to incite the troops in the Northern provinces along with other important leaders who were, now, approaching Burirum Province, became disheartened and fled. Twenty-two officers managed to flee the country and find asylum in French Indochina.

Most of the rebel forces surrendered and were granted amnesty except for the important rebel leaders. Twenty-three had been killed in action.

The People's Party arrested the stragglers and eventually jailed 230 people including Prince Boworadet's younger brother, Prince Sinthiphorn Kadakorn (article 1335 same page, above, in red circle).

Two retired senior military officers were tried and executed. A royal prince was sentenced to life imprisonment. These later were sentenced to death, but later all the sentences were commuted, and no executions took place. Most sentences were later reduced and many were pardoned.

Prince Boworadet sought asylum in Cambodia where he lived until 1948. He then returned home to Thailand and died in 1953 at the age of 76.

(Thailand map of 1933 showing provincial loyalties. RED = Provinces supporting Prince Boworadet, BLUE = Provinces loyal to the government)

Princess Trithipsuda was a daughter of a prince who was King Rama IV’s son. This prince was the origin of the House of Kashemsanta (simply pronounced as Kasemsan). The Princess was married to a commoner.

On March 26^th, 1935, the Princess had resigned from her rank of nobility/royalty in order to free her from constraint to be able to marry a commoner (effective only for female royalty) who was a Director of the office of Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transport.

The Princess died in 2014 at the age of 103.

(Photo courtesy of ‘Page Siam Colorization by Noomrattana’ shows young Princess Trithipsuda dressed in Brahman costume as one of the maidens whose job was to stir a kind of special grains during the (combination of) Thai and Brahman traditions (on October) called “Sat”)

‘…On 30^th June 1933, while staying at Dara Phirom Manor, Mae Rim District, Chiengmai Province, the doctor found that King Rama V’s Princess Consort (page 29/706) had a lung disease. She later died on December 9th, 1933, at the age of 60.

To honor the king's wife, her royal funeral could not be prompted until the royal urn and honorable decorations dispatched from Bangkok arrived which was on December 11^th. During the wait, her corpse had to be frozen with ice …’

(Photo of Princess Consort Dara Rasami courtesy of ‘Page Siam Colorization by Noomrattana’)

A documentary (photos not included) titled: Soda water, lemonade and ice

Thai people have always favored tea, whether a Chinese refresher or a brew of native herbs like ginger and lemon grass, but in the mid-19th-century reign of King Rama IV, coffee was rare, and carbonated drinks didn’t appear until Coca-Cola arrived a few years after World War II.

Way back in 1860s, researchers found out that Siamese, at least some but certainly not everyone, had more choices of drinks apart from plain water: soda water and lemonade. Lemonade is a mixture of lime juice and soda. This new drink is called in Thai as ‘num (= water) ma-ned (= lemonade in Thai tongue)’.

The annual Bangkok Calendar of 1864 carried an advertisement for Miguel Cordeiro, Soda Water Manufacturer, and two years later there were promotions for his rivals in the Bangkok Recorder. Lemonade advertising also appeared in the Recorder that year.

Lemonade, a mixture of lime juice and soda that gave fizzy taste that puzzled Siamese’s tongues for they had never encountered this kind of taste before. They all doubted what kind of water it was and if it was some kind of chemical trick that if drinking much enough, it might give their stomachs exploded because of gas’ pressure.

This doubt had caused sales of lemonade declined in the beginning and the business almost got rooted.

In his 1970s series “Krungthep Nai Adeet” (Bangkok in the Old Days), Thepchoo Thapthong wrote that finally, soda water and lemonade were quite popular among the elite.

In the reign of King Rama VI, they and others who could afford it would buy lemonade from either Fraser & Nieff or Watson. It came flavored with mint, ginger, blueberry and orange. A bottle would cost three satangs but if you bought two bottles, you paid just five satangs.

Anyway, few could resist the temptation to pay an extra satang to have their flavored drinks poured into a cup filled with shaved ice. It was just that much more refreshing.

Ice itself first appeared in Siam while King Rama IV was on the throne, or so it appears from Prince Damrong Rajanubhab’s colourful book “Kwaam Song Jum” (The Memory), which was reprinted by Silapabannakharn Printing House in 1973.

The half-brother of King Rama V, Prince Damrong (page 46/1143) who is praised as “the Father of Thai History”, wrote that ice was among the “uncommon things” that came to Bangkok aboard a steamboat from Singapore (Read the article on page 13/311).

“It seems that ice was recently made in Singapore and it was offered to the King of Siam,” the Prince wrote. “The ice was sent in a big box covered with sawdust.

The King always gives high personages and officers the ice. I and other children my age, having seen ice only for the first time, prefer to break it into small pieces and place it in our mouths, tasting its coolness for fun.

Elders seem to not like it. They complain it gives them a toothache. And there are elders who don’t believe the King gives his men water ice. They say how can we create a solid object from water? (Metaphor: we cannot create something out of nothing). An ice-making factory in Siam started in the Fifth Reign.”

Since Prince Damrong was born in 1862, academics conjecture that the first ice appeared in Bangkok in 1866 or 1867, when he was four or five. The first commercial ice-making machine had been invented in Australia in 1855, with refrigeration and ice-cream manufacturing to follow in the 1880s and 1890s.

Praya Apirakrajautthayan (Chalaem Amatayakul) gave Siam its own ice-making factory in 1899, but it closed after a few years, and another wasn’t seen until 1943, when Praya Pakdinoraset (Lert Setabut) opened the Siam Ice Works to great success.

According to Thepchoo T., in the Sixth and Seventh Reigns, lemonade with ice became trendy, though its price at three satangs put it out of the reach of most people. A nourishing dish of food cost only between one and five satangs.

However, children were always enchanted by the beautiful crystal ball that manufacturers inserted in the necks of soft-drink bottles as a stopper, so much that smart Chinese traders soon marketed a crystal ball, freed of its bottle, as a plaything and collectible.

(Probably something like this..)


Lemonade itself faded in popularity after World War II, but other flavored drinks and, needless to say, ice will never be far from hand.

Ice may not have even shown up in the Kingdom until some 140 years ago, but few of us would want to be without it today.