Wolfgang's photos with the keyword: ตลาดโบราณ

At the Old Market Town in Mueang Boran all shops also sell the goods, food and drinks to the museum visitors for reasonable prices. Here a Thai vendor, one of the museum staff, offers the original Thai coffee were cooked water runs through a long cloth uses as a sieve. The sieve contains the coffee powder and the hot water runs through the powder into the cup. Afterward the fixed coffee will be stirred with extremely sweet and clammy condensed milk (not my taste indeed, sometimes as sweet to get shivering. Here the common style from Italy or Austria (oan Verlängerten) tastes much more and better. Thailand has a new coffee tradition all over the national country. Even in the steep province people cook a very delicious fresh coffee. Instant coffee and Kaffae Khao Shong is not much common anymore.

Spirit Worship is as old as mankind itself. In Thailand the phenomenon goes back to the ancient days when the Tai's were beginning their slow migration from the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam to all parts of the Southeast Asian region. Spirit Worship, or Animism, was a religion by which the entire world lived at one time, and when Buddhism came to Southeast Asia, it developed side by side with the ancient spirit religion. Today, many of the old animistic beliefs are intertwined with Buddhism and some animistic practices still exist in Thailand. One of these which is practiced by every Thai is the Spirit House.

Walking along the small way through the rebuilt Thai village gives an impression to every body that he is switched into the past 60 or 70 years ago.

The art of puppet making - or hadtasin - requires great attention to detail. Marionettes consist of a frame covered with papier-mâché. Most of the frame is made of wood. Parts that must be able to move independently - like the head, neck, and hands - are made of aluminum and wire, which are more malleable. The hand joints require the most attention, since they must be capable of intricate khon movements. Puppet makers must also attach the sticks the puppeteers will use to make the puppets move.

View through a gate in one of the many traditional-style houses.

The houses are intended to provide a shelter for spirits which could cause problems for the people if not appeased. The shrines often include images of people and animals. Votive offerings are left at the houses to propitiate the spirits. More elaborate installations include an altar for this purpose. Many Thais believe that when a Thai family builds a new house, there is always the possibility that it has disturbed the spirits who live on the property. In order to protect their new home from retaliatory harm or mischief, some Thai families put up a little model house on a pole for the spirits to live in. The spirit house must be located somewhere on the grounds where the shadow of the human house will never fall on it. Offering of incense, fruit, flowers and rice will be placed here, because the spirits must be kept happy at all costs. Amazingly enough, though they look like houses and are temptingly stocked with food, the spirit houses are almost never occupied by birds. Perhaps even the birds respect these invisible being. Some tourists may see at a curtain curves of the road, a small spirit house built there by hopeful drivers. Their theory is that if the spirits who haunt the place are given a home they will not spitefully endanger the drivers who must pass this way.

Beautiful hand made Nang Yai are sold to visitors as souvenirs. An ideal small present to carry out as a memory to this museum.

On visiting the site, travellers will be reminded of the spectacle of an ancient market town that was once vital in Thai communities.

An handicraftsman shows how to cut out from buffalo skin a Nang Yai puppet. The products are to be sold for reasonable prices to visitors.

As communication to the local residents Thais used a drum or a bell in the past to call the citizen come to the temple for meditation. At the present overturned loudspeakers do the same in every village, starting 5.30 a.m.

The place depicts an old self-contained community consisting of various shops selling arts and craft, souvenirs and deserts. These old houses were originally from Yannawa district Bangkok, dismantled and rebuilt here.

Monks from the nearby monastery came to visit the open air museum. The first point starts with a visit in a old Thai village and its market.

For hundreds of years, Thailand's puppeteers have entertained both royal courts and village crowds with shadow puppets and marionettes. Historically the Ramakien, Thailand's version of the ancient Indian Ramayana epic, provided puppeteers with their subject matter.

“Nang Yai” is one of Thailand’s traditional dramatic art forms that combines a number of different artistic crafts into one. In terms of visual arts, the elaborate and detailed traditional design of the characters ore first drawn by a master artist. Then the design is applied onto a piece of leather and painstakingly etched into almost lace-like proportion. The pieces are then mounted onto sticks and they are then given life by a master puppeteer in a classical drama performance complete with live Thai musical ensemble and a singer to provide the narrative. “Nang Yai” is believed to have originated since the Sukhothai era, but existing evidence goes back to the Ayuttaya period during the reign of King U-Thong, when it was considered a very popular dramatic art form.

After the walk through the rebuilt Old Market Town the way goes other a rebuilt old wooden bridge to a Khlong (the Thai word for a water canal).

Every thing till the detail is rebuilt in original style even this paved road through the village. When you're visiting the museum you get the feeling being switched 80 years back to the Thai past tense.

The drum tower still is used in some Thai villages calling the citizen to come to the monastery or temple for their meditation. Usually a novice is climbing up to the tower to beat the drum.

The coffee shop is equipped like 50 years ago. Even the television and the gramophone comes from the olden days. Visitors can use the shop for a rest an order coffee or cold drinks or tea.