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| Thai King's Royal Barge |
Along the shores of the Chao Praya river in Bangkok is a grand boat house that shelters the vessels that belong to the Royal Family of Thailand. These boats are mostly built out of locally grown hardwoods and are hand crafted in traditional style. Golden trim, firetruck red paint, use of hand loomed fabrics and extensive carvings of mythical beasts are combined to create boats that would be more at home on the pages of a book of fairy tales than on the muddy water of Chao Praya. Periodically, for certain festivals like the King’s Birthday and state events, the Royal Barges are manned by dozens of elaborately uniformed Royal Thai Boatmen who smoothly and swiftly row the craft through the water.
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| King's Birthday Parade |
If you are anywhere near Bangkok and you hear that the Royal Barges are going to make an appearance, do whatever you have to to be there for the show. Even if you miss seeing them on the river don’t miss visiting the Royal Boat House where they stay between events.
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| Swan Boats Bangkok |
In addition to these colorful, traditional watercraft Thailand is also famous for what has been called the World’s Biggest Yacht. Thailand bought a fairly small aircraft carrier they cal HTMS CHAKRI NARUBET. This 600+ foot long ship is nominally part of the Royal Thai Navy but usually does not go to sea unless a high level dignitary wants a special thrill. Royals or Presidents and Prime Ministers are as likely to be aboard when it is at sea as the half dozen or so Jump Jet fighter planes or helicopters that make up the Air Group attached.
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| HTMS CHAKRI NARUBET |
I doubt very much that you will ever see, much less tread the deck of HTMS CHAKRI NARUBET but even if you never see it you will at least have a ready answer to a cruise ship trivia question to name the world’s most expensive yacht.
In case you are wondering HTMS stands for His Thai Majesty’s Ship.
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| The Royal Ship vs USS KITTYHAWK, A US Navy Carrier |
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