Origin of the name "Sala Klang"

Issue 5 of the @Amphoe magazin is available online now, and probably being available in print very soon. In their section "Things you may not know about Administration" (Page 21), they quote from the book "Thesaphiban" by Prince Damrong, father of the administrative system still in use today.

However, the governor’s home differed from other people's homes in being in a highly secure area centered on the governor's home known as a chuan. As such, government business would be conducted in a large pavilion on nearby grounds outside the bulwarks surrounding the governor's residence. This pavilion became known as the sala klang ("central pavilion").

Several of these former governor homes have been preserved, and at least two of them can be visited - the National Museum in Songkhla is in the former residence of the province governor, also the Ratchaburi National Museum is in the former provincial administrative building dating back to 1922, and the former residence of the Monthon administrator is located right next to it. And there are probably many more preserved, those two are just the ones I visited.

Phuket to get a new province hall

The Ministry of Interior will invest 450 million Baht (15 million US$) to build a new province hall in Phuket. The province administration currently still resides in the historical province hall, a wooden building already 103 years old and already a registered monument under the protection of the Fine Arts Department since 1977 [Gazette]. The new building will be located right across the street from the historical building, an area which is currently occupied by tennis courts and the Sanam Chai sports field.

Plans to spend 450 million baht on a new Phuket Provincial Hall took a leap forward this week with the announcement of official approval to clear the 14-rai site on the corner opposite the current building.
Construction of the new center of administration for the island is hoped to begin next year.
Phuket Gazette, Plans unveiled for new, B450mn Phuket Provincial Hall, October 20 2012.

Compared with the historical building which has just two floors, the planned seven stories on a comparable base area seem a bit oversized, but on the other hand I was quite surprised when I walked along the current province hall and wondered how much small it is compared with other province halls, thus it must be very tight on office space inside. The new building is scheduled to take three years to build, thus it will be opened someday in 2016. The old building will then become an ideal location for a historic museum - like the historic province hall of Ratchaburi which now houses a branch museum of the National Museum.

Bueng Kan province hall

Khun Wisarut at the 2bangkok forum has found an update on the Bueng Kan province hall, including several sketches of the proposed building originally posted at lockerz. While the building itself looks very similar to province halls in other provinces - four stories, a square building with a large open space in the interior, the main news is that the planned location of the province hall has changed. Originally, it was talked about building it near Non Sombun at highway 222, right next to the Bueng Kan campus of Udonthani Rajabhat University, but now it sounds like it will be located along highway 212 in Ban Tha Khrai (บ้านท่าไคร้), about 6 kilometer southeast of Bueng Kan town.

Province halls destroyed in past

When last year four province halls were destroyed in the aftermath of the forceful ending of the red shirt protests, I thought these acts were unprecedented in Thai history. At that time I only knew that the province hall of Surat Thani was destroyed twice, once during World War II at the Japanese invasion, and once by a bomb planted by communist terrorist in 1982.

Two weeks ago, a short news article by The Nation taught me otherwise. While the main point was about Democrat MP Wittaya Kaewparadai warning the government about the risk of riots if the flood situation isn't brought under control - and the current threats by citizens north of Bangkok to break the flood walls which protect the city and keep only them inundated are not far from riots - the final sentence is the interesting one for the topic of this blog.

After the 1995 floods, people in the South burned down the city hall because they believed the provincial governor was keeping donations to himself, he said, adding that he was concerned about the lack of transparency of the Bt120billion rehabilitation plan.
The Nation, Dissatisfaction with govt performance may lead to riots, opposition warns, November 10, 2010

Sadly, it is not mentioned at which province this riot occurred, or how seriously the province hall was damaged in that riot. I tried to find more with Google, but it seems there's nothing to find about that time in any English website.

If anyone know more details, or know about other cases when a province hall was destroyed in past, I am very curious to hear.

Photo albums of administrative offices

Khanom District Office, Nakhon Si Thammarat

For some time I already had started with uploading my photos of the various administrative offices on various web 2.0 sites, but never made it a systematically and complete yet, and never could decide which one to use - Picasa, Panoramio or Flickr, or also Wikimedia Commons. But as with the start of Google+ (thanks to Rikker I am online there already) Picasa effectively dropped their quota and made all images of less than 2048 pixel free - so I can now use that image storage without ever worry about running out of space. I have already uploaded some new photos to the albums below, but still have to go through my archive to complete the albums.

Province Halls	ศาลากลาง	Album
District Office	ที่ว่าการอำเภอ	Album
Province Court	ศาลจังหวัด	Album
Municipal and TAO offices	สำนักงานเทศบาล/สำนักงานอบต	Album
PAO offices	สำนักงานอบจ	Album
City Pillar Shrines	หลักเมือง	Album

The photos are all cc-by-sa, the same license as photos on Wikipedia. So anyone can reuse them, only have to give credit to me as the photographer. And also can upload them to Wikipedia, as I somehow never find the time and mood to fill the more and more bureaucratic forms for a simple upload of a self-created photo.

Historical office buildings

When I was planning for my recent trip to Thailand, I added the visit to the Ratchaburi branch of the National Museum, knowing that it is located within the historical province hall. Though I had seen other historical offices before, e.g. the old Nonthaburi government complex, as a matter of coincidence, in this recent trip I happened to see quite a lot of similar former office buildings, and all of them noticed just by coincidence.

Already at the Ratchaburi National Museum, there are in fact two historical offices to be found. While the main part of the museum is located in the former province hall, the adjoining buildings housing the museum offices and space for temporary exhibitions was the office of the Monthon Ratchaburi. [Map]

On a stop in Phang Nga, I was able to catch all of the administrative offices within the town, and to my surprise close to the district office of Mueang Phang Nga I found the old province hall. As being built from concrete, it looks very well preserved, but seems to be empty and not used currently. [Map]

In Sichon, I passed the location of the municipal administration, and doing a short walk within the compound I noticed a small wooden building still having the sign of being the district office. But in front was a separate sign which states that the building in fact is the registrar office of the municipality. The district office is located outside town nowadays, so the old building was given to the municipality. [Map]

The district office of Mueang Phuket is located directly next to a second old wooden building which also has the sign above its entrance that marks it as the district office. As I walked there when the office was closed already, I could not recognize well how it is used nowadays, but judging from the sign at the entrance it is used as additional office space to the modern building. [Map] By the way, the province hall of Phuket is still within the historical wooden building. [Map]

Since Thailand has not that many historical buildings preserved, it is good to see that at least some of the old government buildings weren't simply torn down after a new building was opened. Being a museum buff, I most like the reuse for a local museum, as was done in Ratchaburi or Nonthaburi, and also in Lampang the old province hall is set to become a branch of Siam Museum.

Thursday linkage

Old province hall of Ubon Ratchathani
Photo by Isantraveller

Isantraveller visit the Ubon Ratchathani National Museum, which is located in the historic province hall. That building, located right next to the city pillar shrine, was in use 1918 to 1968, until it was replaced with a new larger building close-by. The pages of the Fine Arts Department on this museum don't add much to the posting.

Though I haven't yet made it t Ubon Ratchathani myself - I only been to the Northeast once, and just made it to Phimai - I have created a small map with the main administrative buildings of the city. But since they are all located rather close together it's hard to miss any of them anyway.


View Ubon Ratchathani administration in a larger map

Administrative offices in Ranong

Since Ranong is a rather small provincial capital, the main administrative offices are not spread too much, and their original locations not becoming too cramped that a newly built government center needs to be built to replace the nice old buildings.

City pillar shrine

The tour starts at the city pillar shrine, which I have covered in detail on my travel blog. Directly across the street is the municipal administration of the town Ranong (เทศบาลเมืองระนอง). On the Google map below it only shows the old office building, but directly next to it a new more representative one was built. As the current imagery on Google is from 2006, it is one of the many local administrative buildings built very recently.

Old municipality office

New municipality office

The province hall (Sala Klang) is located on top of a hill, and though it is rather old it still looks very much like the province halls in other provinces. While the building itself did not catch much of my attention, I much more enjoyed the fence at the small parking lot with the provincial seal inside, and a small park with a statue, I think it shows King Chulalongkorn.

Province hall

Province court

Down the hill again one reaches the provincial court (ศาลจังหวัดระนอง), again a building in the standard style, so not the kind of building many people want to photograph. I still wonder why the guard at the entrance did not allow me to take a photo - but luckily he only told after I did the first photo already and was trying to find an alternative view. I never experienced any real security measures around the administrative offices - only at the three southernmost provinces troubled by the insurgence I could imagine the authorities to be more reluctant on photography.

District office

One the other side of the hill is the district office of the Mueang Ranong district (อำเภอเมืองระนอง). This is a really old building, mainly built by wood.

I sadly missed the office of the Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO), which I did not find on the map before. When I later found out that it was actually located just across Phetkasem road from the gas station we stopped anyway, if only I had know its location I could do a quick walk over there without the need to ask for another stop. Well, opportunity lost, for the next such visit I will try even harder to have all the locations on my map before. It will probably take many years till I have another chance to visit Ranong.




View Ranong administration in a larger map

Province halls destroyed

While more and more details show up on what has been called "Bangkok's 9/11", it's still a bit difficult to get a better image on what happened in the provinces yesterday. Even for the province halls (city halls) torched, I am still not sure how many and how badly were affected. What is quite clear is those in Udon and Ubon have been completely destroyed, as one can see from the photos in GuideUbon, Isaan Style and UdonMap. For Khon Kaen I found a video on youtube where the fire still seems controllable; according to the Bangkok Post also the one in Mukdahan was burning. According to that article, in Khon Kaen only the historical province hall was destroyed, while the new concrete building was only damaged. Yet to my perspective the loss of an historical building is even worse, as these modern province hall buildings all look similar anyway and can be rebuilt.

I have no idea what happened at the other two province halls originally mentioned in this tweet, I read nothing about Nakhon Ratchasima at all and only a bit about a standoff in front of Nonthaburi province hall due to its proximity to the ThaiCom station.

While this massive arson attack was of course something never happened before in Thailand, it wasn't the first time a province hall was destroyed. The province hall of Surat Thani suffered that fate twice, at first it burned down on December 8 1941 as it caught fire during the Japanese invasion, and a second time on March 19 1982 it was damaged beyond repair by a bomb placed by insurgents. The place where this old province hall was located now contains the city pillar shrine.

I wonder if this was the only case in history any of these buildings suffered such a fate before. I don't know about any other such terrorist act, nor haven't read about similar things happening at the other landing sites of the Japanese. But there might have been accidental fires destroying or badly damaging such a building, so anybody who can point me to more case is welcome.

Burning province halls

Die ich rief, die Geister, werd' ich nun nicht los.

from the spirits that I called. Sir, deliver me! ...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling

Fire at the Udon Thani province hall by Doug Udon

Given the amount of unconfirmed news and rumors right - while Twitter is the best source in this chaotic time one has to keep in mind that all tweets have to be taken with some skepticism - I don't know yet for sure how many of the province halls (quite often called city halls though that confuses a lot with the municipality administration) are affected, but from the above photo the one in Udon Thani has been burnt down, including the historical province hall building next to it, and also the ones in Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani and Mukdahan are either occupied by vandals or set afire as well. And these are only the buildings which I deal with in this blog, several other buildings in Bangkok have been set afire as well, like then Central World mall near the former demonstrators stage.

Looks like now the term "terrorist" used by the government used to some of the red shirt protesters finally fits, as these kinds of vandalism are never anything acceptable as a kind of protest against a government in a legitimacy crisis. But that's what one gets by the leaders radicalizing their demonstrators and then cannot stop them anymore when the compromise which nearly gave them their original result of new elections. I am deeply sorry about what's happening in Thailand now, and only hope that there won't be any further casualties and the vandals will be persecuted and get fair trials. But say goodbye to expect any income from tourism for the next years to come.

Administrative offices in Nonthaburi

For the province Nonthaburi many of the offices are placed together in a single compound, the Nonthaburi government center. Not only comfortable for anyone having to do business with any of the these authorities, but also for me to be able to photograph all the offices with just a little bit of walking.

The last part of the provincial slogan - งามน่ายลศูนย์ราชการ - claims that the central administrative building is "beautiful, worth looking at". However to me the province hall looks just like all the others, yet when researching for the article on Nonthaburi province some years ago I came across a site which claimed that the province hall was awarded by the Ministry of Interior as the most beautiful province hall once.

In front of the province hall is a statue of King Chulalongkorn, together with two Yellow Flame trees (Peltophorum pterocarpum, which is both the provincial symbol flower and tree. When I visited there, it also had lots of billboards around there, the candidate lists and other announcements around the election for the provincial administrative organization (องค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัดนนทบุรี). This local government entity sharing responsibility for the whole province with the province hall has its office next to the district office, but since I did not look for it nor with my limited Thai noticed it on the map at the entrance I missed to photograph that one.

Directly at the entrance of the compound is the city pillar shrine, though beautiful its architecture is quite standard style of these buildings. The first office building at the entrance is the municipality office (สำนักงานเทศบาลนครนนทบุรี), followed by the district office of Mueang Nonthaburi (ที่ว่าการอำเภอเมืองนนทบุรี).

The final important building I also missed to photograph is the provincial court, with the family and juvenile court directly next to it. The two courts actually use a different entrance from the main road and therefore were also omitted on the map at the entrance to the main compound. For the other buildings in the compound see in the map below, where I marked all the buildings I coulhttp://mt0.google.com/vt/lyrs=m@116&hl=en&x=0&y=1&z=2&s=Gd identify.

View Larger Map
The government center was opened in 1992, but from what I read already at the old location all these offices were in a single compound. Just a few months ago, this old building had been converted into the Museum of Nonthaburi (พิพิธภัณฑ์จังหวัดนนทบุรี), which from that review sounds like a very interesting place to visit. It is now definitely on my list of places to go next time I am in Bangkok.

Province administration outside central town

Normally, the province hall (Sala Klang, ศาลากลางจังหวัด) is located right in the middle of the town with the same name. Often, there's even a full government center, including other offices like the Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) and the provincial court (San Changwat, ศาลจังหวัด), sometimes even the district office of the Mueang district and the municipality, for example the one in Nonthaburi I have documented here already. But like every rule, there are the exceptions, when the original province hall became too small and not enough space was available to build the replacement in town anymore.

The first one I noticed was Kamphaeng Phet. Originally, the province hall was located close to the entrance of the historical park. Now, the old building is used by the district office instead, and the new province hall is located about 7 kilometer north of it in Nong Pling subdistrict, still in the Mueang district but outside the municipality. Judging from the satellite picture, the provincial court has moved to the new location as well, whereas the PAO is still at the old location, though I don't know which building it is exactly.

In Lampang, the old province hall area seems to be deserted completely, at least none of the office I know about is located in there now. The province hall is in Phra Bat subdistrict, 6 kilometer southeast of the old location. The PAO is even further away, in Sala subdistrict of Ko Khae district. The provincial court is located next to the province hall, while next to the old province hall the district court is found. The district office finally is still in a rather small building near the old administration center. For this case I have made a small map, as there are quite a lot of buildings concerned.

View Lampang government offices in a larger map

The final case I am aware of is the PAO of Phisanulok, which is at the road Phitsanulok to Nakhon Thai in Samo Khae subdistrict. However I wasn't able to find the building in the satellite image yet, so it may have moved just recently and so the building might just be too recent.

Administrative offices of Phetchaburi

This year I happened to stop over in Phetchaburi two times, and used the time to collect photos of the administrative offices. Which was rather easy as they are all located close to each other on Ratchawithi road, and easy to find as on Phetkasem from bangkok it's just driving straight on instead of taking the turn to the south next to Khao Wang.

When driving that way, the first place to see is the city pillar shrine (Lak Mueang), a small shrine located in a nice park with the wooden pillar covered by gold in the center. And as it has a pond within the park, one can of course by food to feed the fish inside. And also as usual with such attractions, it has several souvenir carts as well as small eateries at the parking lot.

The actual offices are located 500 meter further down the street. Starting on the northern side, it has the district office (ที่ว่าการอำเภอ) of Mueang Phetchaburi district first. As there are a few additional buildings between the office and the street I could not get the standard view of the whole office this time - and now I look at the building in Google Earth again I think I have been on the backside only and thus missed the better view on the other side - so I have to return there to check next time.

A few buildings further down the street comes the municipality office (สำนักงานเทศบาล) of the town (thesaban mueang) Phetchaburi (เทศบาลเมืองเพชรบุรี).

Now turning south to the other side of the road it has the province hall (ศาลากลางจังหวัด), the central administration for the whole province. I am not sure what were the two smaller buildings in between - maybe the PAO office is among them-, but then on the other end of the block opposite the district office it has the provincial court (ศาลจังหวัด).

View Phetchaburi administration in a larger map

Administrative offices of Samut Songkhram province

Like in several other provinces, in Samut Songkhram the main offices of the administration are located within one compound. When we went to the floating market in Amphawa we had to pass that compound, so I could shortly stop there and walk around to take photos of all the buildings.

The main building is of course the province hall (Sala Klang, ศาลากลาง), which also has the main parking lot in front. Since we went there on the weekend the parking lot was completely deserted, and I was the only person strolling around there.As usual, a statue is placed in front, if I am not totally mistaken it's king Chulalongkorn, similar with the statue on the Royal Plaza in Bangkok.

East of the parking lot is the city pillar shrine (San Lak Mueang, ศาลหลักเมือง), a small building with the wooden pillar inside.As usual, this pillar is covered with gold and has colorful clothes stripes around it in order to honor it. The shrine itself however looked like it needed a little renovation already, as the color started to fall off. Especially that small tree starting to grow in the roof shouldn't be there, but for the photo it adds some nice green color.

Continuing along the road to the north next comes the provincial court (San Changwat, ศาลจังหวัด). The photo I made isn't that good as there were too many bush and trees blocking the view, and I did not want to walk inside on the grass to find only to find a better spot for the photograph. The next building however was easy to photograph again, the district office of Mueang Samut Songkhram district (ที่ว่าการอำเภอเมืองสมุทรสงคราม). For a change this office did not have the photo of HM the King, but of princess Sirindhorn placed in the frame in front.

Returning to the parking I lot I chose not to walk the same way back, but instead walk inside the compound to the backside of the province hall. This turned out to be a very good decision, since to my surprise I then found the building of the Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) as well.I hardly ever find this office marked on any maps, usually only the above mentioned province hall and district office are shown.

I only could not take any photo of the municipal office, which is located on the other side of the street - simply because they put a thick sun-shading net over the parking lot in front of the building, so it was impossible to take a photo showing the facade of the building.

And as usual, I have created a Google Map with all the offices marked.



View Samut Songkhram administration in a larger map

Province hall of Thonburi

I was wondering before about a building on the Thonburi river shore near Memorial Bridge, which has the same building style as administrative offices outside Bangkok. Especially when looking at it on Google Maps the similarity becomes notable - but I knew already that it is not any of the district offices in Bangkok. Only when I visited the district museum of Thonburi district within Wat Prayun I learned that this building was the province hall (Sala Klang) of Thonburi province, built only few years before the provinces Thonburi and Phra Nakhon were merged into the Bangkok metropolis in 1971. As it wasn't needed for the city administration then anymore, it is now used as the office of the Department of Law Enforcement (สำนักเทศกิจ).

Samut Prakan government center planned

Richard Barrow, probably the most active English blogger, webmaster, forum operator for Thai topics started an interested new thread in his forum at thailandqa.com. Following the local news of his home Samut Prakan he writes about a planned new government center for the province. I several provinces the government offices are located close to each other - for example the one in Saraburi I wrote about last year. In Samut Prakan the city hall and district office are located close to each other in downtown, yet as Richard claims they are spread out over the city these must mean the other offices like the land office.

The Thai source for this is from a website on the BTS Skytrain extension into Samut Prakan, where the mass transit project is listed coupled with the move of the government offices. If I understand that short text correctly, the study will be finished within the next one to two years, and then developed in the following ten years.

The only illustration is a rendered view of the new province hall, and a map of the central part of the complex, containing the district office (bottom right), the PAO office (middle right) and the province hall (upper middle). The buildings left and right to it are an auditorium and a cultural center. Another very low scale map shows this is only the central part, so the other offices to be moved here will be located around. The forum will probably be the first place where one can find any news in English on this project.

To further illustrate I have created a Google Maps, showing the locations of those offices I know or found on maps like this and the location of this new site. Additions or corrections to that map are of course welcome - I haven't made it into Samut Prakan town yet to check out the current locations of the offices.


View Samut Prakan administration in a larger map

Administrative offices in Prachuap Khiri Khan

As the town Prachuap Khiri Khan itself is rather small, compared to the size of the province, the important administrative offices are all close to each other. I went there just once, taking the dinner break there on the road trip from Surat Thani back to Bangkok. As it was just a stopover and everyone already tired and wanting to be back home, I only had short time to take some photos.

When entering the town, the provincial hall (Sala Klang) is hardly to be missed, a large building with a typical blue roof directly in the extension of the road. However the most important place I wanted to see was the city pillar shrine (Lak Mueang), which is located close by as well. The building style of the shrine is different from that in other provinces, as it is built in Khmer style modeled after the several Khmer temple ruins found especially in the northeast of Thailand. I don't know why this style was chosen as Prachuap Khiri Khan has no Khmer ruins. Just speculating - when the province Prachuap Khiri Khan was created, the now Cambodian province Koh Kong located opposite the Gulf of Thailand was named Prachanta Khiri Khet, a kind of a sister province. Maybe someone who can read the sign to the right can shed a light on this.

The only other office I could take a photo was the provincial court (San Changwat), located directly opposite the road of the province hall. While I tried to walk little bit more to search, I sadly could not remember the exact location of the other two important ones - the district office of the Mueang Prachuap Khiri Khan district and the municipality office of the town Prachuap Khiri Khan, so both have no photo yet. The PAO of Prachuap Khiri Khan seems to have a separate office, as I guess the one on the top banner is the office building. But I have no idea where it is located, I even cannot find a street address on that website.


View Larger Map

Historical photo of a province hall

I found the photo below in the book "History of Lanna" by Saratsawadi Ongsakun, a great resource on the history of northern Thailand.

The photo shows a province hall sometime around 1900, when the provinces were still named Mueang instead of Changwat. The sign over the entrance reads ที่ว่าการเมือง (Thiwagan Mueang), a name now only used for the district offices which are called Thiwagan Amphoe. The provincial administration building today is named Sala Klang instead. Sadly neither that sign nor the caption of the photo give any further details on which provincial administration is pictured, even the timing of the photo is very unclear as it only says it was taken between 1897 and 1917. The photo is from the National Archive, but there seems to be no easy way to browse that archive like it has for the Royal Gazette.

The office looks quite different from those of today, like those few I have published the photographs already. Some additional ones can be found at Wikimedia Commons. As such administrative buildings aren't usually photographed by tourists, and it will take me many years to visit all provinces, or even all districts, I can only invite everyone to take such photos and make them public under a free license, to have more illustration on the Wikipedia articles. Also any pointer to historical photos like the one above would be welcome, especially if the copyright for that photo has expired already and it would be possible to use it as well.

Administrative offices in Surat Thani city

In Surat Thani, the administrative offices for the province, municipality and district are located at different places throughout the city, quite in contrast to to Saraburi where they are all located within one block.

The province hall (Sala Klang Changwat) and the provincial court (San Changwat) are located next to each other in two large buildings. Between the two buildings is a stone with the geographical location - 9° 7′ 54.32484″ North, 99° 19′ 53.90800″ East in WGS84 - but strangely this is the coordinate of a location 110 m south of the location of that stone both in Google Earth as well as according to my GPS tracker. In front of them is a large open space covered with grass, used for parades or other ceremonies. At the western side of the field is a statue of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). The whole complex was build in the 1980s, after the old province hall was destroyed by a bomb planted by communist insurgents on March 19 1982. 5 people died.

The old province hall was located directly at the Tapi river, the place which is now occupied by the city pillar shrine. It was build in 1995 on the open space, which was used as a small sports fields after the old province hall was torn down.

The municipal office is located not far from the old bus terminal of the city. It also has a sports field in front, and one can often see locals doing exercise there in the evening. As one of the tasks of the municipality is the fire protection, the fire station is located directly next to the municipal office.

The last of the administrative offices within the city is the district office of the Mueang district. It is located not far from the city pillar shrine. The most irrelevant news about this office - within the last year it received a new painting, now it has a yellowish color, last year it was still white.

Another place is the official residence of the provincial governor, a villa located directly next to the Tapi river near the city pillar. There are of course many more offices from the central administration, for example the land registration office directly next to the district office, or the juvenile and family court next to the city pillar, but I left out these from both the above list as well as this map below.

View Larger Map

City pillar shrine of Saraburi

The last station of our family trip last year was Saraburi, where we stopped for lunch in a restaurant. As my brother in law lives and works in Saraburi I asked him whether he can get me to the city pillar as well, but he had to admit that he don't know the location. I hadn't seen it marked on any map either, just remembered that the province hall was not far from the train station. So when we drove through the city center around the area where I had the province hall in my mental map, I noticed something which look like the city pillar shrine, so after lunch I asked to stop there quickly. And I spotted correctly, it was the city pillar shrine, right next to the province hall, so I could take photos of both.



It's just sad I did not have a good city map with me then, because both the district office of the Mueang district as well as the municipal office of the town are located very close to the province hall. But with the family waiting in car for their crazy farang to take photos of boring places, I did not walked around more than necessary, so I missed these two buildings. For the next time I have now made a small Google map with the location of all four places. Just sad the still there are now hires satellite data for this area.







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The city pillar shrine was apparently built quite recently, according to the only English resource I found on the web so far it was built in 1977, and renovated and altered in 2001. The reason why the province did not have an older city pillar might be because it was just moved to its present location in 1896. Originally the province center was in modern-day Sao Hai district, and was moved when the railway was built to a place with railway station. Sao Hai itself has a special pillar by itself. The name Sao Hai (เสาไห้) means "crying pillar", which according to the local legend is a pillar from the province which was selected to become the city pillar of Bangkok. It was a nearly perfect pillar, but it arrived too late and the official pillar was already chose, and it only became a secondary pillar. This made the pillar sad, it returned home and sunk in the Pa Sak river. The local people heard the crying and built a shrine for it, the Chao Mae Takhian Tong Shrine which is now in the temple Wat Sung, close to the district office of Sao Hai. That shrine is definitely on my list of places I need to visit.