From the Chulalongkorn period onwards, members of the Thai royal family liked to ship their children off to be educated in the West. The goals were determinedly to catch up with Western modernity and to flaunt their own civilised veneer in front of their Western counterparts.
King Vajiravudh and King Prajadhipok were sent to Eton College in England. Prajadhipok also graduated from the Woolwich Military Academy and thus became familiar with British society. This could have explained why he chose to retire in Surrey after his abdication in 1935.
Prince Chakkrabongse Bhuvanath graduated from the Page Corps in St Petersburg, representing King Chulalongkorn at the Tsarist Court. Prince Mahidol Adulyadej pursued his medical study in Massachusetts, where the current king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, was born. Bhumibol himself was raised in a picturesque Lausanne, attending French-speaking schools and eventually enrolling at the University of Lausanne. But he never graduated.
Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was neither academic nor intellectual. King Bhumibol sent his son to private colleges in Great Britain and Australia. Reckoning that a career in the army would suit his personality, Vajiralongkorn undertook military training at the Royal Military College, Duntroon in Canberra. In my interviews with some of his classmates in Australia, they referred to him fondly. Vajiralongkorn still keeps in touch with his old colleagues there and welcomes them with a royal treatment when they visit him in Thailand.
But it is the love of Germany’s Bavaria that ultimately drew Vajiralongkorn back time and again over the years. While the primary reason for Vajiralongkorn making Munich his second home are his regular medical check-ups, the Crown Prince found the region relatively tranquil and far enough away from the sophisticated atmosphere he normally encounters elsewhere. In particular, withdrawing from maddening crowds provides him privacy.
When King Frederick of Prussia yearned for a private residence where he could strip away royal ceremonies and customs, he ordered a construction of a palace called Sans Souci (Without Worries) in Potsdam, near Berlin, in 1745. At Sans Souci, Frederick was living a secret life in an all-male society away from the public eye, similar to what was seen within the royal court of King Vajiravudh.