Thai boat museum

Ajarn Paitoon Khaomala founded the Thai Boat Museum in 1994 with a spirit that has been connected to water and boats since childhood. He has also been a teacher of design, drafting and boat building throughout his civil service life at the Shipbuilding School (now the Shipbuilding Technology and Industry College) from 1958 until his retirement in 1996. He foresaw that the advancement in technology, transportation and shipping of the country would reduce the use of boats in the future and the wood that is the main material for boat building would be gone. The younger generation would not know about Thai boats and local boats. Therefore, he founded the Thai Boat Museum at his first residence to preserve and be a source of knowledge about Thai boats for students, scholars and interested people, both Thai and foreigners. The teacher sacrificed his pension and money from selling two rai of rice fields in Pathum Thani Province. to build additional areas around the residence to be the Thai Boat Museum. In addition, he also wrote a set of 4 volumes of “Thai Boats” for the study of various types of Thai boats in accordance with the objective of making the Thai Boat Museum a museum consisting of 3 exhibition areas: 1. Ancient Boat Building, displaying ancient boats that were actually used in the past. Some are over a hundred years old, such as the 8.5-meter-long Chala teak boat. 2. Thai-style building made of golden teak, displaying various types of boat models, including royal ceremonial barges, such as the Suphannahong Royal Barge, the Narai Song Suban Royal Barge of King Rama IX, and the Anantanagara Royal Barge. 3. Outdoor area, displaying large boats outdoors, such as the Krachang boat made of teak, which is a boat used to transport rice. Source: https://thailandtourismdirectory.go.th/th/info/attraction/detail/itemid/3570