Page 4 - Thailand Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

AYUTTHAYA PERIOD BANGKOK PERIOD (1767-PRESENT) (1378-1767) The destruction of Ayutthaya was a devastating Sukhothai's gradual decline was followed by the rise of setback. But with typical Thai resilience, an ambitious Ayutthaya. Within a century of its founding by an half-Chinese soldier named Taksin rallied the nation ambitious Tai prince form U Thong, this riverine capital and established a new capital in Thonburi, a sleepy had become a major military power and the grandest fishing village just across the river from modern city in Southeast Asia. Western visitors who arrived Bangkok. Within 10 years Taksin drove the Burmese during the 16th and 17th centuries described Ayutthaya from Thailand and expanded Siamese sovereignty from as a splendid metropolis with a population larger than Chiang Mai to the deep south. As the son of a Chinese London's. Among the farangs (foreigners) was tax collector, Taksin repopulated the country with Constantine Phaulkon, a Greek adventurer who rose to Teochew Chinese trade merchants, whose taxes great power in the court of King Narai. After he provided significant revenue for the fledging state. But attempted but failed to convert the king to Christianity, a the strain of long years of warfare took its toll, and palace rebellion broke out in which Phaulkon was Taksin apparently went insane with delusions of executed and all Westerners expelled. It was during this grandeur and paranoia. After imagining himself an period of self-imposed isolation that Ayutthaya created incarnate Buddha, Taksin was executed in the manner its own golden age of arts and architecture. This came to prescribed for royalty; placed in a velvet sack and an end after the Burmese became jealous of their wealth beaten to death with a sandalwood club. and mounted a series of military campaigns against the city. In 1763 the Burmese attacked, and after two years Word of the coup d'etat eventually reached General of resistance they had slaughtered most of the Chakri, a popular Thai military leader on expedition in population and burned the city to the ground. Not only Cambodia. Chakri was called back to Thonburi and did they destroy the artistic and literary heritage of crowned King Rama I, first ruler of the dynasty which Ayutthaya, they also pulled down many of the continues to the present day. Fearful of attack by magnificent Buddhist temples and reliquaries - an act of Burmese forces, Rama I transferred his capital across horror which still profoundly shocks the Thais. the river to present-day Bangkok and attempted to re- create the former magnificence of Ayutthaya with the During Ayutthaya's 417 years as the capital, under the construction of royal temples and palaces. The city rule of 33 kings, the Thais brought their distinctive continued to be called Bangkok by Western map- culture to full fruition, totally rid their lands of Khmer makers, but Rama I renamed it a multi-syllabled presence and fostered contact with Arabian, Indian, Sanskrit moniker abbreviated as Krung Thep ("City of Chinese, Japanese and European powers. Angels"). Rama II (1809-1824), an outstanding poet, is chiefly remembered as the author of the Thai Ramayana. The British defeat of Burmese during the reign of Rama III (1824-1851) allowed the Thais to expand their national boundaries to Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam. Today, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy. Since 1932, Thai kings including the present monarch, H.M. King Bhumipol Adulyadej have exercised their legislative powers through a national assembly, their executive powers through a cabinet headed by a prime minister, and their judicial powers through the law courts.