A Half-Day Trip to Lop Buri

Because I’m writing a book set in the time of King Narai, I needed to visit some of the places I mention in it to get a feel for them. So, I took my family to visit Lop Buri about 130 Km north of Bangkok. We left at 7 am and arrived in Lop Buri about 90 minutes later.

Lop Buri is a small town, even today, so it must have been very small back in King Narai’s time. I won’t tell you too much about the story, but the main characters are Constantine Phaulkon and Samuel White.

Constantine Phaulkon or Constantinos Gerakis (Gerakis is the Greek word for falcon) (1647 - June 5, 1688) was a Greek adventurer who came to Thailand as a merchant in 1675 after working for England’s East India Company. He became fluent in Thai in just a few years and began to work at the court of King Narai as a translator. Due to his experience with the East India Company, he was soon able to become a counselor of the king. He also became known as the Barcalon, a corruption of his royal title.

[Taken from Wikipedia.org]
Phaulkon’s closeness to the king naturally earned him the envy of some Thai members of the royal court, which would eventually prove to be his undoing. When King Narai became terminally ill, a rumor spread that Phaulkon wanted to use the designated heir, Phra Pui, as a puppet and actually become ruler himself. As unlikely as this was, it provided an excuse for Pra Phetracha, the foster brother of Narai to stage a coup d’etat. Without the king’s knowledge, both Phaulkon and his followers as well as the royal heir were arrested and executed on June 5, 1688 in Lopburi. When King Narai learned what had happened, he was furious — but was too weak to take any action. Narai died several days later, virtually a prisoner in his own palace. Phetracha then proclaimed himself the new king of Siam and began a xenophobic regime which expelled almost all foreigners from the kingdom. [Some things just never change, do they?]

The different interpretations of Phetracha’s motivation for ordering the arrest and execution of Phaulkon have made the Greek’s position in Thai history somewhat controversial. Supporters of Phetracha’s actions have depicted Phaulkon as an opportunistic foreigner who sought to use his influence to control of the kingdom on behalf of Western interests. More skeptical historians believe that Phaulkon was simply a convenient scapegoat — a means for Phetracha to seize the throne from the rightful heir by capitalizing on the envy and suspicion Phaulkon had engendered.

Judging by the notice board outside the ticket booth to enter his house (farung 30 Baht, Thais 10 Baht), no one has given TAT the correct information. They had the dates wrong by 2 centuries, and the story was completely wrong. They named Phaulkon as an Ambassador, although they didn’t say which country he represented. Someone should also ask the TAT to put up signposts clearly pointing the way to their offices. They do have some signs, but when you come to one of the large roundabouts that are a feature of Lop Buri, there is no signs pointing to the correct road to follow.

Phaulkon’s house is in ruins. You can see large burn marks where the Burmese burned it down during the invasion of Ayudhaya some years after his death.

As you walk in the front gate, King Narai’s palace is about 300 meters down the road called Rue de France behind you. He obviously wanted to keep his favorite counselor close by him.

Walking into the grounds you are confronted by a large courtyard with the remains of a Christian chapel at the back. You can still see how grand it all must have once been. Phaulkon entertained the French Ambassador and a group of Jesuit priests who hoped to convert the Thais to Catholicism, a task they gave up on in the end.

To the left as you walk in is Phaulkon’s house. One room has what appears to be a cellar. You can still see the holes in the brickwork at ceiling height that must have held up the 2nd story of the rest of the house.

To the right is the large formal dining room and reception area. It is easily big enough to have held 100 people. I imagine they would have held a few balls and dances there as well.

Behind the main buildings are the kitchens and servants quarters. The kitchen walls are still standing, but all that remains of the servant’s quarters are the brick foundations.

For more about this amazing man, you might like to visit these links:
chiangmai-chiangrai.com
marabu1.tripod.com
Everything2.com
NationMultimediat.com

We were the only visitors, so I imagine Phaulkon’s house is not particularly popular, but it tells us far more about that period than King Narai’s palace, which is also in the same state of decay. It’s a shame, as contemporary descriptions of his house paint it as a beautiful, luxuriously appointed dwelling worthy of a Royal Advisor.

We saw a few other remains of the old city wall and houses dotted around the town. But modern Lop Buri seems to be much the same as any other upcountry Thai town. It has a bustling market area. The main shopping street is for pedestrians only. I think they also have a morning (or perhaps evening) market outside Narai’s palace walls.

After visiting Phaulkon’s house and viewing Narai’s palace, we went to Phra Phrang Sam Yod in the center of town. This is a Khmer style Phrang; a kind of Buddhist chapel. The place is overrun with hundreds of monkeys, and this is why many Thais like to visit Lop Buri. We saw a few foreign tourists, but the majority were Thais.

The monkeys are not aggressive, but they are a nuisance. The local shopkeepers employ old men armed with a catapult to sling stones at the monkeys when they get too bold. Shops facing the Phrang also have steel frames over the upstairs windows. The monkeys climb up and over everything. They will also try to steal anything they think worth taking. One even jumped onto my wife and tried to snatch the baby’s bottle that was sticking out of her handbag.

Across the road and over the railroad line from the Phrang is a shrine to the monkey goddess. As it was crowded with Thais making merit, we didn’t bother trying to get a look inside. But you can imagine the scene. A huge statue of the goddess, surrounded by the usual smoking incense, burning candles, flowers, and other statues and pictures.

Outside the shrine, and just across the railroad track, we watched a bunch of monkeys cooling off in a fountain. They were having a great time. Some sat around the edge of the pool and watched or even pushed others playfully into the water. Quite a few jumped into the water and showed great swimming prowess. I watched one old timer nonchalantly swimming breaststroke with his head almost submerged. A few youngsters jumped in and swam underwater and emerged in front of their mates hanging onto the center structure. It was all good fun, and the monkeys were obviously having the time of their lives.

Apart from that, Lop Buri doesn’t really offer much else. We drove around town through narrow streets looking for a decent restaurant. In the end, we gave up and drove back to Bangkok for lunch.

What about Samuel White? Well, he is the main character in my book. He was stationed in Murgui, a part of Siam in those days, on the south west coast of what is now Burma. He reported that all was well to King Narai, but he used Siamese naval ships to raid British trading ships. As a result, the gathered a substantial treasure. My book builds on this. It has hidden pirate treasure, journeys on elephant through wild jungles, political schemes simmering in the background, and hot sex scenes as Samuel meets and greets several high-ranking Siamese ladies during his travels. If that’s not enough for you, the book will also follow the exploits of one of Samuel’s descendants in the present day as he seeks the hidden treasure.

I will post a couple of teaser chapters here soon.

© Marc Holt. All rights reserved by the author.