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Post Info TOPIC: Bangkok Prison Corrections Museum


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Bangkok Prison Corrections Museum
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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Crime and gunishment

 
dave-meets-uncle-tows-skeleton-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Dave curbs his enthusiasm at meeting Uncle Tow


When I was a kid, I loved dungeons, haunted houses and the Chamber of Horrors section of wax museums (I still know the sequence of torture instruments at the Brading Wax Museum on the Isle of Wight like the back of my severed hand). I'm happy to report that I've never grown out of this.

It's no so much morbid curiosity or a disturbing gore obsession as the amusement of someone putting hard work and care into creating dummies and dioramas to really scare the **** out of children - especially when they contain more gore than is strictly necessary (Haw Par Villa in Singapore is the best example I've found in the world, so far).

I've been trying to find 'unusual' attractions in Bangkok on my most recent visit, so I was delighted to find out that there are a few museums devoted to death and suffering in various forms. Excellent! I was going to categorise these next few blog posts as The Dark Side of Bangkok, but then I remembered there are much darker things around here than that, which I have no interest in seeing. No matter how often tuk tuk drivers make the sales pitch.


Corrections Museum,
Bangkok


corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Time for some more education in the inhumane


takrow-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Takrow - a ball of rakkan with sharp nails on the inside.

Prisoners were placed inside this zorb of torture and they 
let an elephant play football with it.
(Maybe the widespread elephant mistreatment in Thailand is justified after all)


bed-lek-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Bed lek - prisoners were hung by the chin and left to hang around for a while.

Eventually abolished in 1908 by the Penal Code, after nearly 500 years of effective use.

It's health and safety gone mad


nail-hammering-tool-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Nail hammering - self-explanatory. Apart from maybe clarifying that the 'nails' are fingernails. And actual nails. Nailed into fingernails. Self-explanatory


torturing-box-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Torturing box - constructed to the exact size of prisoners to ensure a perfect fit.

Then they left you outside for a while in the heat so you could think about what you'd done (or more likely, think mad and sad dehydration thoughts)


temple-pressing-tool-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Temple pressing - After the elephant kickabout and being cooked alive, this one seems almost polite by comparison.

Especially as they apparently cut your head off first, so you presumably don't feel a lot


creepy-dummies-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

These facsimiles of upstanding law officers were the scariest part.


thai-female-prison-officer-dummy-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Still, you would, wouldn't you?


prison-drug-instruments-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Real seized drugs and things. It's like effing Breaking Bad


breaking-bones-with-stones-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Some jolly paintings of torture during the Ayutthaya period, again crafted with the same morbid delight as the Haw Par Villa dioramas... or should that be die-oramas?
Oh hang on, I checked and apparently the first one is the correct spelling


beheading-by-sword-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Bad man getting beheaded. People in the distant past were barbarians


gun-execution-2-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Bad man getting gunished. People in the not-so-distant past were barbarians


lethal-injection-bed-since-12-12-03-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Place where bad men lie and get executed by lethal injection (since 2003). Modern society is so utopian


uncle-tow-donated-body-skeleton-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Uncle Tow who devoted his body to the prison for people is awareness of their mortal lives.


uncle-tow-sign-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Hey, I'm just reading the sign


broken-skull-money-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Though I'm not sure who this was or what's going on here. I left my donation at the exit - it somehow seemed more ethical than dropping it here and listening to the satisfying sound it would make ricocheting off Dead-O's remaining teeth


guard-leading-me-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG

Oh dear, apparently it's disrespectful and a criminal offence to take photos of the dead stuff.
Have I learned nothing today?


dave-behind-bars-again-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG


prison-corridor-corrections-museum-bangkok-thailand.JPG


 


-- Edited by Roaming reporter on Thursday 26th of July 2012 12:26:25 PM

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