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| Statue in front of the MOI |
When the domains of the hinterland of the kingdom were organized into monthon in about 1890 in the fifth reign (i.e. the reign of King Chulalongkorn), the monthon containing the domains of the black-bellied Lao was first called "Monthon Chiang" (and those containing) the white-bellied Lao were called "Monthon Lao Phuan" and "Monthon Lao Kao". [...]The directoral terms from the Sanskrit I mentioned before already. The previous names refer to the older principalities, Chiang Mai of course became Chiang, Phuan to Chiang Khwang (Xieng Khoung) and Kao to Luang Prabang. The black-bellied refers to the traditional tattoo on the bellies, whereas the white-bellied did not do like that.
... and the names of the monthon were changed in accord with their directional location within the kingdom: Monthon Chiang became Monthon Phayap, Monthon Lao Phuan became Monthon Udon, and Monthon Lao Kao became Monthon Isan.
Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg (1851-1918) was an Austrian diplomat, who however is best known due to his many travel writings. Following a visit to Siam in 1898 he wrote the book "Siam, das Reich des weißen Elefanten" (Siam, the land of the white Elephants), an interesting read even despite lots of cultural prejudices. From the chapter on the government is following excerpt on prince Damrong, first minister of the Interior.Als Dritter im Bunde ist Prinz Damrong zu nennen, der augenblicklich den wichtigen Posten eines Ministers des Inneren bekleidet. Damrong war lange Jahre in Europa, um das Unterrichtswesen zu studieren, und ihm war es auch vorbehalten, den Unterricht der Siamesen zu regeln und in Bangkok einige Musterschulen zu gründen, die in vieler Hinsicht vorzuglich genannt werden können. Man würde den hochgebildeten, eleganten Mann für einen Franzosen oder Engländer halten, denn weder aus seinen Gesichtszügen noch aus seinem Benehmen oder seiner ganzen Unterhaltung könnte man erraten, daß seine Wiege in Hinterindien gestanden hat. Kam ich zu ihm, dann empfing er mich mit liebenswürdiger Einfachheit, unterhielt sich in vorzüglichen Englisch über europäische Persönlichkeiten oder Verhältnisse, mit denen er so vertraut ist, als wäre er auf dem Boulevard des Italiens oder in Piccadilly aufgewachsen. Auf seinem Schreibtisch liegen die neuesten Zeitungen aus Europa, die er täglich geradeso liest wie der König. Seine Geradheit, Pünktlichkeit und Arbeitskraft scheint er auch seinem Personal eingeflößt zu haben, denn in keinem Ministerium geht es so, ich möchte sagen „europäisch” zu wie in dem seinigen.As most of my readers don't speak German, and the machine translators like Google Translate will only make ridiculous text out of it, I am giving a rough translation myself.
As the third I have to mention prince Damrong, who currently fills the important post of a minister of Interior. Damrong stayed many years in Europe, where he studied the educational system, and it was left to him to organize the education of the Siamese people and found several exemplar schools in Bangkok, which in several ways can be called exquisite. One would think of this highly educated and elegant man to be French or English, as neither his facial features nor his manners or his way of conversation would allow to guess that he was born in Further India. When I was visiting him, he greeted me with lovingly simplicity, and chatted in exquisite English about European celebrities and circumstances, with which he was so familiar as if he grew up on the boulevard of Italy or Piccadilly. On his desk lie the latest newspaper from Europe, which he reads daily just like the King. It seems like he has infused his straightforwardness, punctuality and his labor into his personnel, as no other ministry is working in the same European style as his.
Fitting to the current events, here's a photo I made just on Saturday while doing a walking trip after the rainshower ended. The first site I went was the Ministry of the Interior, where I planned to take a photo of the statue of Prince Damrong in front of it. The whole area was like deserted, as the action on that day took place in Pattaya. And just the next day this location came into focus when the red shirt mob tried to lynch the prime minister, who barely escaped through a back exit.
Varadis Palace is a museum in Bangkok, Thailand.How much I hate articles like this, they are totally useless in my view. In moments like this I wish the English Wikipedia would adopt the same policy on such non-articles as the German Wikipedia, where stuff like this is instantly deleted. I enlarged by more than 100%, only adding the most trivial things like that it was the home of Prince Damrong, that it was built in 1911 and renovated in 1996, as well as adding the geotag so it will show up in Google Earth or Google Maps in the future as well. All these things the original author could have done by investing 5 minutes on Google, instead of leaving the actual work to someone else. The article is now still very short and has a lot of potential for future expansion, but at least it contains the most important information and not just the obvious ones. And to make it worse - there are maybe 100 articles in this state on various sights in Bangkok, all linked from a list of museums in Bangkok - which even includes Phutthamonthon to be in Bangkok.