Page 32 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Bangkok

30 ❯❯ Top 10 Bangkok Highlights

Jim Thompson House

Jim Thompson, an American businessman who came to Bangkok
in 1945, is credited with having revived the Thai art of silk weaving.
His traditional Thai house contains a fantastic selection of
Southeast Asian antiques, paintings, and sculptures. Surrounded
by a lush garden, the compound consists of five other teak houses
on stilts that also showcase part of Thompson’s collection.
Dining Room
4
Like the master
bedroom, the dining
room also enjoys lovely
views of the garden. The
room features several
items of Ming porcelain
as well as some fine
paintings. The dining
table, which consists of
two mahjong tables put
together, is laid out for
a meal as it might have
been during the days
of Jim Thompson.
Spirit House
Drawing Room
Jataka
1 2 5
Paintings
Located near
This large and airy
room looks out onto a Near the entrance of the canal, the spirit
terrace and is deco rated the house are house (left)
in orange and red colors scenes from the generally has
(above). It houses a Jataka Tales, offerings of
14th-century sandstone which depict the flowers and
head of the Buddha and incarnations of incense to
wooden carvings of the Buddha. appease the
Burmese figures set in The panels were spirit of the land
illuminated alcoves. painted in the on which the
early 1800s. house stands.
JIM THOMPSON’S Master The Garden
DISAPPEARANCE 3 6
Bedroom
Surrounding the
On Easter Day, 1967, With a great view over house is a garden with
Jim Thompson went out the garden, this room is cooling pools and dense
walking in the Cameron filled with sculp tures, tropical vegetation
Highlands in Malaysia. pain tings of the Jataka (below) includ ing
He was never seen Tales, and photo graphs flowers, banana plants,
again. His former role in of Jim Thompson. and palm trees.
the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS), a
predecessor of the CIA,
fueled suspicion that
he was abducted by
Vietnamese communists,
though others suspect
he was hit by a truck
and that the driver
buried the remains.
Eyewitness Travel – Top 10 series LAYERS PRINTED:
Three-column, 8.25pt grid “UK” LAYER
(SourceReport v1.5)
030-031_Top_10_Bangkok.indd 30 22/05/2017 12:12
Date 12th May 2015
Size 100mm x 191mm