New district museum videos

Brochures from the district museums

Some months ago I wrote about two videos on the district museums in Bangkok which I found in youtube. As I rarely use youtube I did not notice that happyfamilyday uploaded many more videos on museums in the meantime, and also several new videos featuring the district museums.

To collect them in one place I have created a playlist within youtube, currently containing eight videos.

• Phra Khanong (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตพระโขนง) [Video]
• Rat Burana (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตราษฎร์บูรณะ) [Video]
• Thawi Watthana (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตทวีวัฒนา) [Video]
• Lat Krabang (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตลาดกระบัง) [Video]
• Bang Rak (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตบางรัก) [Video]
• Chom Thong (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตจอมทอง) [Video]
• Nong Chok (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น หนองจอก) [Video]
• Bangkok Noi (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตบางกอกน้อย) [Video]

Of these eight, I have only visited two so far - Bangkok Noi and Bang Rak - as most of them are from the more outlying districts not that easy to reach by walking and public transport. So many ideas for trips to be made when I am in Bangkok again next month.

District museum brochures - mission impossible

When I found out last year that the BMA local museums offer their visitors a nice Thai language brochure about their district, I have tried to collect as many of these brochures as possible. So in my vacation last year I visited as many of these museums as possible, and could get seven of them. Though I had no hopes to visit all of the remaining museums this year, I could do another five - I will post reports on the visits in my travel blog within the next months - now after this visit my hopes to get the whole set of the brochures are now shattered. In two of the museums I had to ask for the brochure, and the clerk found one in the depth of the desk, only in Bang Sue there was still a pile right at the counter, but in two museums this brochure was no longer available. Especially for Bang Rak this is easy to understand, as the district museum is within the Bangkok Folk museum, a very recommendable museum and thus much more often visited than the other district museums located in schools or temples. For Dusit district it may be similar, as the district museum is right next to the Kiak Kai children museum, so maybe also has relatively many visitors.

Already before I posted about the brochures last year I tried to contact the Bangkok tourist office without any reaction, and earlier this year I tried again all the tourist offices available. The main TAT office replied that they don't have them and offered an alternative brochure on museums; the German branch office send me a general museum brochure - nice and interesting, but not the one I was asking for. And the Bangkok tourist office - again no reaction at all. My final hope was to visit the Bangkok tourist office in person, but either the clerk did not get which brochures I was asking for, or they really had none of them on stock and sent them all to the museums. I only got a small book on the various museums around Bangkok - lots of ideas for future trips, but again not what I wanted.

So unless there will be a second edition of the brochures, thanks to the ignorance of the Bangkok tourist office I will only have an incomplete selection of them. I still cannot understand why they did not at least took the time to answer that they don't have it. Actually, they should have tried hard to get them, since I made clear mention of my blogging activities. By writing my reports I am in fact doing work for them for free, more and more travelers use the internet and blogs when planning a trip. I am quite disappointed by their job attitude, though it won't stop me from writing more articles and doing the promotion they should do themselves.

Enough ranting. Though I now won't be able to collect the whole set, I still want to have as many of the brochures as possible. Now owning nine of 27, there are still 16 which may still be available. However when I can come to Bangkok again someday next year, the chances of still getting any will be even lower than now. And to make it worse, I already visited all the museums which are relatively easy to reach with walking and public transport, the remaining are more remote. But if any of the Bangkok residents reading my blog wants to help me, I clearly would appreciate it - though modest these museums are worth visiting to learn a bit about the respective district. The locations of these museums can be easily seen in my Google map.

Videos on the district museums

Actually I was trying to find the location of the BMA local museum of Nong Chok district (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่นเขตหนองจอก), as this is the only one which is missing in my Google map of these museums. But when I opened its entry in the local museum database, to my surprise it now showed a video as well, which wasn't present there last year. In turns out that the makers of the Thai website happyfamilyday.com uploaded videos of several museums around Bangkok, including for two of the district museums. Hope there'll be more, even though it's of course only in Thai.

Nong Chok



Bangkok Noi

District museum visitor numbers

I mentioned the low number of visitors to the district museums earlier, but now I have found actual numbers to illustrate it.

As the second endnote "ข้อมูล ณ เดือนตุลาคม 2548" says the visitor data is from the October 2005. The number differ quite strikingly - while Thawi Watthana and Bang Khun Thian both have about 1000 visitors, the one of Nong Chok only got 10. This is even more surprising as all three mentioned are in the extreme outskirts of the city, Thwai Watthana and Bang Khun Thian to the west and Nong Chok to the east. The one of Phra Nakhon close to the touristic centers got just 312 which still made it number 5, or Samphanthawong then still in Wat Traimit at number 8 with 260. In total the 27 museums received 6622 visitors, which means about 250 per museum, around 10 each day.

However I guess these numbers are not really usable for anything more than a rough overview. The fact that the two westernmost and remote museums received most visitors can only come from some busloads of students carried their from their schools, so the activity of the school in the district distorts the numbers for the corresponding museum. For a more meaningful statistics these visitors should be listed separately from those visitors coming out of their own initiative.

Taking into account a comment of the guide in Bangkok Yai museum that the visitor numbers went down a lot since the end of the Thaksin administration, any more recent such statistics would probably be devastating. Which is really not a fate deserved by these museums, and I really pity the guides who spend most of their time just waiting for a visitor. The only way out would be better promotion, but with the museum website http://www.bmalocalmuseum.com offline for more than a year, and even more an email regarding these museums sent to the Bangkok tourist office getting no answer I have not much hope for any improvement.

District museum brochures

When I visited the district museum of Bangkok Noi before, the only brochure they could give me was a small flyer which just contained the location of three further museums. So it was a big surprise that after visiting the district museum of Thawi Watthana the guide gave us a small booklet. 28 pages in A5 format, fully colored and well designed. Just the only thing bad is the fact it's only in Thai. The not only show the exhibits in the museum and repeat the explanations already seen in the museum, but also include a map and sometimes even go beyond the things on display and are more a brochure on the district than on the museum.

These brochures were the additional motivation which made me visit several more district museums, to collect as many of these brochures as possible. I only collected seven (plus one on the whole local museum project), the attempt to ask the Bangkok Tourist Office by eMail for a way to get the whole set had the same fate as most of my contact attempts. Clearly not the reaction I expected for tourist office of a country which should work hard to attract the tourists scared away by the political struggles. But if anyone else can help me to collect more of these brochure feel free to contact me...

New district museums

Visiting the district museum of Thawi Watthana, we got a nice brochure which among other things includes a list of all the district museums. In my last post on these museums I had listed 20 museums, the brochure lists a total of 27 museums. Those not mentioned previously are

• Bang Khen (บางเขน), in Building 18 of Phranakhon Rajabhat University (มรภ พระนคร อาคาร ๑๘)
• Don Mueang (ดอนเมือง), in the temple Wat Phrom Rang Si (วัดพรหมรังษี)
• Suan Luang (สวนหลวง), in the Sala Mai Sak Rian Thai (ศาลาไม้สักเรือนไทย) of Wat Tai (วัดใต้)
• Khan Na Yao (คันนายาว), in the temple Wat Bun Si Munikan (วัดบุญศรีมุนีกรณ์, however in Google Maps spelled วัดบุญศรีมณีกรณ์)
• Lat Krabang (ลาดกระบัง), in the temple Wat Sutthaphot (วัดสุทธาโภชน์)
• Wang Thonglang (วังทองหลาง), within the Chao Phraya Bodindecha Museum (พิพิธภัณฑ์เจ้าพระยาบดินทรเดชา or สิงห์ สิงหเสนี)
• Nong Chok (หนองจอก), Museum Building in 76 Provinces Royal Auspicious Trees Park (อาคารพิพิธภัณฑ์ บริเวณสวนไม้มงคลพระราชทาน 76 จังหวัด)

Also, the one of Samphanthawong was moved to the Wat Pathum Kongka School, as the space within Wat Traimit became a new Chinatown Heritage Museum. I have added them all to the map below, except Nong Chok as I cannot find the location on this park in any of my maps. And at least the one of Suan Luang is easily reachable, is it within walking distance between the Skytrain station Onnut and the famous Mae Nak shrine. Sadly I compile the above list to late to drop it a visit as well.

Actually, these seven museums aren't new, I just could not find them when I compiled the original list since they were not indexed within the broken BMA local museum website (which now ceased to work completely). The only website which has anything on these museums is the Local Museum Database, which also includes the opening hours.





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Bangkok district museums

In 2005 Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has started a program to establish a local museum within every of the 50 districts, displaying items of the local history, the local handicrafts and culture. They are named พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่นกรุงเทพมหานคร, which simply means "local museum Bangkok". If I read the website on this program correctly, so far 21 such museums were opened. In most cases these museums are within schools.

• Khlong San within the temple (Wat) Anongkharam
• Chom Thong, within Wat Yai Rom
• Thawi Watthana, within Wat Puranawa school
• Thon Buri, within Buddhist Sunday school within Wat Prayun
• Bangkok Noi, within Suwannaram Witthayakhom school
• Bangkok Yai, within Rit Narong Ron school
• Bang Khun Thian, within Khlong Phithaya Longkon school
• Bang Rak, within the Bangkok Folk Museum
• Rat Burana, within the Wat Phra Saert Sutthawat school
• Samphanthawong, within Wat Traimitr, the temple with the famous golden Buddha
• Nong Khaem, within Wat Si Nuan Tham Wimon
• Din Daeng, within Wichagon School
• Dusit, within the Kiak Kai children museum
• Din Daeng, within Wichagon School
• Bang Sue, within the temple school of Wat Soi Thong
• Bang Na, within Bang Na Nai school
• Phaya Thai, within the Public Relations Department
• Phra Khanong, within Wat Thamma Mongkhol
• Phra Nakhon, within the district office
• Yannawa, within Wat Khlong Phum
• Watthana, within the temple school of Wat Phasi

In the local museum database most of the above are also listed together with their opening times; the missing museums are only accessible in the Thai version of that database. All of the museums have no entrance fee, and are closed on either Sunday or Monday.

Sadly the whole program seems to be not much promoted anymore, especially not in English. The website which I link above is quite difficult to find as the domain name bmalocalmuseum.com is not working anymore. There are also some broken links within it, and of course no English version. If there weren't the street signs the museums would receive even less visitors - when I visited the one of Bangkok Noi lately I wasn't not only the first to sign the guestbook for the day, but for 2 weeks (OK, it was around the Songkhran holidays then, so hardly any students brought there with their school classes). I've posted a report especially on that museum in my travel blog already, so you can get an idea of how these museums look like. I can only recommend to pay them a visit, too bad I have only been able to visit one of these museums (and that twice) so far.

Below is a Google map with all the locations of the museums listed above, as accurately as I could place them. Corrections or additions are of course welcome.


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Bangkok Noi district office

The district offices in Bangkok are normal office buildings, and don't look like the district offices of the other provinces, quite clear because the land prices in Bangkok are much higher and thus the building style has to be more space-saving. Also, as the districts of Bangkok are a different administrative entity, the offices also have a different name, สำนักงานเขต, Samnak Ngan Khet.



The district office of Bangkok Noi is the closest one to the place we usually stay when we are in Bangkok, at least for a farang still in walking distance. It is located directly next to the Khlong Bangkok Noi, once a meander of the Chao Phraya river reduced to a canal when the main course of the river was changed by digging shortcuts. Nearby the district office is Wat Suwannaram Ratchaworawihan, once an important temple. It was used as the royal cremation site in the beginning times of the Rattanakosin era, and the actual location of the crematorium is now the location of the district office. The temple is famous for its murals, however the two bot/viharn were both closed, so I could not take a look. At least from the outside they also look like in need of a renovation.



Adjoing the temple is the Suwannaram Witthayakhom school, where one room was converted into a museum of the district, part of a program by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to have a local museum for every district. The signs within the museum are bilingual, but sadly none of the guides could speak English at the time I visited, so I could only get the written information. I have to revisit it, last time I did not take photos of it. Tour-bangkok-Legacies has a review on this museum, together with a map how to find it.