These are just notes, so don't expect them to make any sense to anybody else - normally even to me.

Buddhist weddings in Thailand

Chiang Mai Zoo

Houses Thailand's Giant Pandas loaned by China.

Rare and endangered animals

The zoo has many endangered animals (Siamese crocodiles, Giant Burmese Turtoises)

Giant Pandas

The Pandas are to be returned if the female becomes pregnant (to check).
They sometimes fall down the gap between their space and the visitor's gallery whilst walking along the edge of the wall.

Davey Graham

An early pioneer of Britain's folk rock movement.

Kinnaree

From Kinnaree magazine

Kinnaree are humans from 'Himmawatpradhes'
Kinnaree are females, Kinnon are males.
These are Thai names, but the legends originate in India.
The Thai Kinnaree is a very beautiful woman with an angelic costume.
Her lower body is that of a bird (including wings) so she can fly. She can even fly between the mythical and real worlds.
She can also swim, in which case she loses her lower bird form and looks like a beautiful woman.
The most famous Thai Kinnaree is 'Manorah' (in Thai 'Panyasachadok'). The dance 'Manorah-Bachayan' featured in the literature (?) is one of the most esoteric (?) Thai classical dances.
Kinarree are appear in the Vaalmeeki Raamaayan [1]

From Himmapan.com [2]

They are inhabitants of Himaphan Forest/Himmapan Forest.
The upper part is female and the lower part is that of a swan.
Thep Kinnaree (thep means angel or holy spirit) [3]
The male equivilant is the Kinnara or Kinna Norn [4]. These have the lower body of a Hongsa.

Buddha

Did the Buddha tell a story about a Kinnaree giving a different form to it? That of a half bird, half snake.
Buddha was 'born as a Hongsa' [5]

Stories

To find

Other uses of Kinnaree

The Golden Kinnaree is the name for the Bangkok International Film Festival film awards
Kinnaree Magazine is the in-flight magazine for Thai Airways International's domestic flights.

Nang Nak

A Thai film of an old ghost story.

It is an old ghost story remade giving much more sympathy to the female ghost then traditional tellings of the story.

The male star is also the face of Coca-Cola in Thailand.

Wiang Kum Kam

Wiang Kum Kam (Thai: meaning ) is an old city near to and pre-dating Chiang Mai. Soon after the founding of Chiang Mai by King Mengrai the city was lost to flooding and until its recent re-discovery was assumed to be legendary. In 2000 it was designated a Thai historical park.

Excavations by the 4th Regional Office of Thailand's Fine Arts Department started in 1974 CE first found ten wats at twenty locations together with

Addition by Garry Harbottle-Johnson, Author, [6]"Wieng Kum Kam - Atlantis of Lan Na" - Oct 2005

Mengrai’s tenure at Wiang Kum Kam, and the site’s history in the shaping of the current kingdom’s forerunners is little understood by non-scholars. Tourist Authority announcements, tour guide training, and the Formal Education Department tend to dismiss it as a temporary encampment of little significance compared to the older Lamphun and younger Chiang Mai. Enshrined in this is the ongoing mythology that Phaya Mengrai abandoned his wooden-walled city due to its destruction by flood – a story that has been thoroughly disproven by archaeologists, archival researchers, and historians.

Wiang Kum Kam existed long before the Tai king arrived in this area, originally a Mon outpost, adopted and expanded by the Khmer, then a frontier town of Lampang’s medieval Mon-Khmer-Tai cross-bred royal line, Mengrai took the wiang as his royal seat in 1286 AD. Medieval writings that translate into the Chiang Mai Chronicle make it clear that the king, having awarded Lamphun to his spy Khun Ai Fa, moved north-east to Chiang Rua and built a new city, which he abandoned three years later due to flooding so bad that, “the elephants, horses, cattle, and buffalo had no place to go…. Therefore in the rwai set year (1286/87), King Mengrai moved to build Wiang Kum Kam. He built a moat around the city on all four sides, channelling the flowing waters of the Mae Raming. He built a palisade on all four sides of the city, and he had a great many dwellings and buildings constructed. King Mengrai built his extensive royal dwelling palace, and halls, spreading all around that site, and it has been called the New Village (Baan Mai) to the present day” [extract from The Chiang Mai Chronicle translated by David K Wyatt & Wichienkeeo]. This passage goes on to imply that the flooding was so bad, he moved to Wiang Kum Kam in the middle of 1286’s monsoon season.

Mengrai’s time at both Wiang Kum Kam and Chiangmai was full of auspicious events and great victories, yet at the southern site he suffered none of the tragedies and heartaches that beset him in the larger and later city, which may be why he returned to Baan Mai, in 1311, when he believed he was dying of an illness. He survived and returned to rule from Chiang Mai until he died in the city marketplace in late 1317 or early 1318 – the exact date is not given in chronicles.

Between his establishment of Wiang Kum Kam in 1286 and moving to Wiang Nopburi on 27 March 1292 (the pre-existing settlement that became Chiang Mai), Mengrai’s achievements are often overlooked, yet they were vitally important in the establishment and growth of both Lan Na and more southerly Tai and Thai kingdoms. Additionally, during his time there, he established two of the regions oldest surviving, and still active temples – Wat’s Chedi Liam, and Kan Thom (the latter now called Wat Chiang Kham) – both of which predate the more famous temples of Phra Singh, Doi Suthep, and Chedi Luang in Chiang Mai.

During the six years at the wiang, Mengrai undertook several military campaigns that enlarged his Tai Alliance designed to deny the Mongols access to Souvannaphoum (the Golden Land) of SE Asia. The first, in 1288-89, was to Burma’s Martaban Coast and the Mon capital of Pegu, from where he acquired another wife, captives and treasure, and an alliance with the usurper king, a Shan by the name of Wareru who is reputed to have eloped with a daughter of Sukhothai’s King Ramkhamhaeng in 1281. Later, in 1289-90, Mengrai also mounted an expedition to the central Irrawaddy region to a Tai-Shan town named as Phukam, in the region of the later Ava. On the return march from the Phukam expedition he despatched a force that successfully relieved the siege and capture of Chiang Hung (in the SipSongPanNa) by the Mongols – a feat he had to repeat in Chiang Mai’s founding year of 1296. The following year, rebel Tai-Shan forces, allied to the Mongols, attacked and sacked Pagan – Burma’s greatest medieval city.

During his two Burmese expeditions, Mengrai gained alliances that expanded his federation of Tai-led kingdoms resisting Mongol incursions, and provided for the success of Siamese kingdoms in the central plains. Because of his Tai-Alliance, the Yuan Dynasty forces took easier routes to the southern coastlands, frequently passing west of the Shan Plateau to pass down the Irrawaddy valley, or down the Tai-held Black and Red Rivers’ valleys in northern Vietnam. Rarely did they try to march directly south through upper Laos, the SipSongPanNa and Lan Na, or along the Salween Valley. In fact, the Annamese and Tonkin Bay cities, of upper Vietnam, had long been Beijing’s allies and vassal states, it was only because of the Tai resistance to their west that they were finally able to throw off the yoke and achieve lasting independence.

Following Mengrai’s death, Wiang Kum Kam went on to become a major centre of religion in Lan Na. Dozens of temples and monasteries were founded there, and there was frequent discourse between the wiang’s monks and those of Sri Langka (the pre-Ceylonese name). Field and archival archaeology has shown that new temple buildings were being constructed right up to the near-consecutive events of destruction by flood and capture by the Burmese in the 16th century AD. It appears that the town was destroyed sometime around the end of that century’s first quarter, yet the Burmese invasion did not occur until the end of its third quarter. Anecdotal evidence, in chronicles, indicates it was lost by the time of a southern king’s royal visit (to Lamphun) in the middle of the century.

Yet, despite the cultural and military importance of Wiang Kum Kam under the Mengrai Dynasty in the establishment and nurturing of Lan Na, why is it that little, if any, preparation appears to have been made regarding its upcoming auspicious anniversary?

HM Queen Sirikit’s visit in 2003[7], celebrating the opening of the new visitor’s centre and museum, launched international awareness of the site. A number of local historians and authors have called for it to have World Heritage status, and senior academics have called for a halt to uncontrolled construction on and beside it.

During 2002-3, it featured regularly in national media, and a few times it appeared on international TV – the landmark ruins of Wat Pu Pia becoming the flag-waving image for it. Unlike other major ruined cities in Thailand, it has not yet appeared on a set of postage stamps, despite being a more complete city than even Sukhothai or Ayutthaya.

Wats

So far over forty wats have been discovered that are associated with the old city. New temple ruins are continually being discovered.

Wat Chang Kham

It was the discovery of Haripunchai style Buddha statues at Wat Chang Kham that first alerted the Thai authorities to the existence of ruins that might be associated with Wiang Kum Kam.

Wat Chedi Liem

Wat Chedi Liem has been known for some time due to its distinctive chedi.

Wat Tard Khao

The temple is still in ruins with only the Buddha statue restored.

References

History of Wiang Kum Kam & Ancient remains - Anonymous
The Tourism Authority of Thailand

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