Jim Thompson House

In a leafy compound beside a canal, a cluster of old teak houses with steep roofs stands among tropical plants, hung with art and antiques, a pocket of traditional Thailand in the modern city. This is the Jim Thompson House, the home of an American who revived Thai silk and then vanished, now one of Bangkok's most charming museums.

Jim Thompson was an American who settled in Thailand after the Second World War and built a business that brought Thai silk to the world, reviving a fading craft and making it famous abroad. He became one of the best-known foreigners in the country.

He built his home from several old teak houses brought from different parts of the country and reassembled here in the traditional style, raised on stilts, with steep roofs and dark polished wood, around a garden by the canal. The house itself is the main exhibit.

Inside, Thompson filled the rooms with the Southeast Asian art and antiques he loved and collected, sculpture, paintings, porcelain, and carvings, arranged as a home rather than a gallery, so you see how a connoisseur actually lived among his treasures.

His story took a strange turn. In 1967, while on holiday in the highlands of Malaysia, Thompson went for a walk and was never seen again. His disappearance was never solved, and the mystery has only added to the fame of the man and his house.

The revival of Thai silk is his lasting legacy, and the craft he championed is still sold under his name. The house tells the story of how he found weavers, improved the colours and quality, and opened the craft to a global market.

The compound is as much garden as house, a green, shaded retreat of tropical plants beside the canal, with the city kept at bay by the walls. It is a cool, calm escape from the heat and noise of the streets outside.

The house sits in the middle of the modern city, near a canal where traditional boats still pass, so stepping into the compound is a sharp change from the traffic and towers just beyond the gate.

The house is visited by guided tour, which leads you through the rooms and tells the story of the man, the silk, and the disappearance. The tours are frequent and add a great deal to what would otherwise be a quiet walk through old rooms.

The compound also holds a shop selling the famous silk, a restaurant, and a gallery with changing exhibitions, so a visit can easily stretch beyond the house tour into a pleasant couple of hours.

A few practical notes. Entry is by ticketed guided tour; dress respectfully, as you remove your shoes to enter the houses, and photography may be limited inside. It is easy to reach by the city's rail systems and the canal boat.

Walk the shaded rooms among his collected treasures, hear the story of the silk and the unsolved disappearance, and the man comes alive in the home he made. Few museums are so personal. When you step back out into the modern city, the quiet teak houses linger behind you like a held breath.