THAILAND – The Dvaravati House at Mueang Boran // The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Mueang Boran, the Ancient City, is a beautiful treasure overseen by many Bangkok tourists. The open-air museum hosts some unique buildings – including a certain karate school.

Why Bond was here
James Bond (Roger Moore) goes after sharp hitman Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) and pins him down somewhere in South East Asia. To find his remote island, he travels to Bangkok to meet Hai Fat (Richard Loo), a wealthy Siamese industrialist who partners with Scaramanga.
Bond poses as Scaramanga, but his plan backfires: He is captured and placed in Fat’s martial arts academy, where the students are about to kill him.

Bond at the Dvaravati House Karate School

How you gonna get there
That martial arts academy is the Dvaravati House inside the Ancient City Mueang Boran. Mueang Boran is a vast open-air complex south of Bangkok, claiming to be the worlds’ biggest open-air museum. You can either get there on numerous ways:

• Go there by taxi – and tell the driver to go to the Ancient City – or get you own rental car for around 700 Baht a day.
• The budget option is to go by metro. There are two rivaling systems in Bangkok, the BTS Skytrain and the MRT Metro. You need the BTS green Sukhumvit Line and head to the final destination called Kheha. From there take the Mueang Boran Shuttle service (free on weekends) or a Tuk-Tuk.

Good to know
Mueang Boran is a huge complex. The entry is 700 Baht, but you’ll pay only half the price if you come after 4 pm – which is totally enough, if you are mainly interested in the Dvaravati House.
The house itself is not a real house, but like all other buildings in Mueang Boran a smaller version of an original version elsewhere. It is modeled after the Ruan Thap Khwan house within the noble Saman Chan Palace. It consists of eight houses facing a raised court. The court was transformed into the karate fighting stage in the movie.
Due to being a museum, the location still looks the same – but has one major change. There is a huge porcelain well in the middle of the court, fully equipped with a small statue and koi fish. The well is in that part of the court where Bond lays down on the terrace to watch the karate pupils.
The Dvaravati House is No. 18 and quite at the beginning – but don’t miss other beautiful buildings like the Great Vajiradhama Temple or the petite Floating Market.

We came to Mueang Boran by car, as we had already rented one to see the famous location of the Astro Spiral Jump outside Bangkok. The ride is easy and there is free parking. But once inside the vast museum, opt for a free bike at the entrance. It is the best way to make the distances in the huge park and have a cooling breeze on your skin while exploring!

© 2019 Huntingbond (1,3), © 1974 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Danjaq, LLC. The Spy Who Loved Me (2)