No Touch…. Mumbo Jumbo…
Sunandha Kumariratana
Sunandha Kumariratana was the daughter of King Mongkut and Princess Consort Piam of
Thailand. She was born in 1860 and was the first queen consort.
In 1880, when Kumariratana was only 19 years old, her boat capsized on the way to Bang Pa-In
Royal Palace. She drowned despite the fact that there were many onlookers present that could
have helped her. They didn’t because they were not allowed to touch the queen. If they had, they
could have been put to death. So ironically and tragically, they were not allowed to save her life.
The grief-stricken Chulalongkorn later erected a memorial to her and his unborn child at the
Bang Pa-In Palace.