Jim Thompson's House

Due to last minute changes to my recent trip I spent a couple of night in Bangkok on my way to India. I managed to get out and see a few of the sights that I had not seen on my previous trips to Bangkok.


Jim Thompson was an American designer who traveled to Thailand just after the end of WWII as a member of the OSS (precursor to the CIA). While in Bangkok, he discovered the nearly lost art of hand woven Thai silk. After exiting military service he returned to Southeast Asia to bring the industry back to life. He is generally credited with bringing Thai silk to the attention to European and American fashion.


He build a beautiful house which now sits close to the middle of the city along one of the many canals. It is a traditional house on raised stilts as protection against seasonal floods. He also collected a lot of very nice Buddhist art including stone sculpture and tapestries. It is a quite peaceful oasis amidst the chaos that is Bangkok.


He went for a walk in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1967, and disappeared. He was never seen again.