The Erawan Museum

Somehow we didn’t get many photos of the Erawan Museum over the weekend despite its being one of the most obviously photographable things we’ve visited yet. It’s in Samut Prakan, the province immediately south of Bangkok; Samut Prakan also contains Ancient Siam, an enormous park containing replicas of the wonders of Thailand for people to wander around; we have not visited this yet. Like the Erawan Museum, Ancient Siam was constructed by Lek Viriyaphant, who seems to have had a lot of money and grand ideas, though this was not explained to my satisfaction at the Erawan Museum, which is an enormous building shaped like the three-headed elephant Erawan, who figures in the Hindu cosmos:

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Inside the building is a shrine and filled with religious art, both old and new: the structure is of relatively recent construction, and you can climb all the way up into the elephants. The grounds are beautiful and make for a nice escape from Bangkok. After this we went to the Bang Nam Pheung floating market, a journey partially accomplished on a rickety speed boat, but we didn’t take many pictures of that so you’ll have imagine how idyllic that was.

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