Baan Hollanda, Ayutthaya: Site of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Trading Post

Trade goods and conflict

The main goods the Dutch bought in Ayutthaya were deerskins, stingray skins and sappanwood, most of which were shipped on to Japan in exchange for silver and copper. Later the Dutch held a monopoly on the trade in animal hides and tin at certain periods, and also bought tin, sappanwood and ivory from southern provincial towns such as Nakhon Si Thammarat.

Relations did not always run smoothly. In 1636 came what is known as the "Dutch picnic crisis": after VOC staff went out on an excursion, trouble broke out, and two Dutchmen were sentenced to be trampled to death by elephants, until the head of the trading post had to pay for their release.

In the reign of King Narai, around 1663–1664, the VOC sent ships to blockade the mouth of the Chao Phraya River to put pressure on the court after a dispute over merchant ships. The episode ended with the treaty of 1664, which granted the Dutch special trading privileges.

This spot through the eras

This point on the map tells the story of the global trade that flowed through Ayutthaya, from before the Europeans arrived to the day only brick foundations were left.

• Founding of the city (1351–1488): there were no Europeans in Ayutthaya yet. This was riverside land south of the city island, near Wat Phanan Choeng.
• Naresuan's era (1548–1605): the Dutch arrived and were received by King Naresuan in 1604, but there was no trading post at this spot yet.
• King Narai's era (1656–1688): the riverside trading post was in full swing. This was the period when Dutch commercial influence was at its height, and it saw the blockade of the river mouth and the treaty of 1664.
• Second fall of Ayutthaya (1767): the last VOC ship left in November 1765. During the final phase of the war before the city fell, the trading post was seized, looted and destroyed.
• Today: what remains are the excavated brick foundations, a memorial, and the Baan Hollanda information centre, which opened in 2013.

From brick ruins to the Baan Hollanda information centre

The Fine Arts Department registered the area as a historic site in 1938, and a brick memorial with a bronze plaque was unveiled on 19 August 1956, but no systematic excavation had yet taken place.

The Fine Arts Department's major excavation took place in 2003–2005, marking 400 years of Thai–Dutch relations, and uncovered the foundations of 3 brick buildings. Digging resumed in 2008–2009 with the support of the Dutch government, revealing a fourth building along with clay tobacco pipes, glassware, coins and ceramics.

The two-storey main building, about 12.5 x 45 metres, could only be partly excavated, because most of it lies beneath a neighbouring private shipyard. Today's site of about 1.3 rai (roughly 2,000 square metres) is only around one-tenth of the original VOC land.

The information centre was completed in 2011 and opened to visitors on 3 April 2013, funded by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the Dutch government. The exhibition was developed by Thai historians together with museums in Thailand and the Netherlands.

Visiting

Inside are exhibitions on the VOC in Siam, reproductions of 17th- and 18th-century European maps, replicas of artefacts such as coins and ceramics, and 17th-century-style household objects. The front of the building faces the river in Dutch style, and you can walk around the excavated foundations.

Baan Hollanda is not far from Wat Phanan Choeng, so the two make an easy half-day together. Or combine them with the Portuguese Settlement and the Japanese Settlement (Japanese Village) south of the city island to see the story of Ayutthaya's foreign communities in a single trip.