thompson

since i didn't join arms, mia and jan to go to the grand palace and worked on some QCs in the morning, i decided to go to jim thompson house in the afternoon. this was our last day in bangkok and this museum is a mere 5-minute walk from wendy house where arms and i stayed.

upon payment of 100 baht, the tourists will be divided according to language preference, with a specific tourist guide taking care of each group. naturally, i joined the group of the english-speaking tourist guide. somewhat similar to our own bahay kubo, traditional thai houses are built on stilts, especially as bangkok is made up of several klongs (canals). the area beneath the house (silong in tagalog) is also used as storage, while the entire structure is usually built as a cluster of separate rooms with a large terrace at its center. this is also the same architecture of jim thompson's house. thompson's collection included the oldest known buddha statue in thailand, akin to burmese tradition, while also including some antique chinese porcelain pieces and traditional chinese paintings. on top of the thompson silk store, there was also an ongoing exhibit of thai silk gowns and thompson's own take of the thai history.