Phra Maha Chuai and the people of Phatthalung: the camp at Khlong Tha Samet built to meet the Burmese

What happened here

March 1786Stop 7 of 7

A little over a thousand people of Phatthalung, led by Phra Maha Chuai, came up and built a camp across the road the Burmese would take to attack Phatthalung and Songkhla. It was the only town on the Gulf coast of the south that stood to fight.

See the whole route on the map →

The monk who became a commander

Phra Maha Chuai was a native of Phatthalung who had studied as a monk until he became a Pali scholar, and he was respected as a man with knowledge of protective magic. He made takrut amulets and protective cloths and handed them out to give the townspeople courage. Officials and village heads brought people to enrol as his followers until they numbered a little over a thousand. Once every man had a weapon, they invited him onto a litter and carried him out of the town.

When the war was over, the Front Palace prince came to Nakhon Si Thammarat and asked whether any town had stood and fought the Burmese. On hearing about Phatthalung, he had Phra Maha Chuai leave the monkhood to enter royal service and made him Phraya Thukkharat, one of the officials of Phatthalung. His descendants bear the surnames Satchabut and Si Satchang.

Was there any fighting?

The sources agree that it never came to a battle. Where they differ is how far the Burmese got. Some versions say the two sides faced each other from their camps at Khlong Tha Samet and the Burmese then withdrew of their own accord. Prince Damrong's Thai Rop Phama says the Burmese had not yet marched down from Nakhon Si Thammarat when they heard news of the army from Bangkok.

The place today

Phatthalung in those days stood in Lam Pam subdistrict, on the shore of Songkhla Lake. Wat Wang, the town's principal temple, and the Governor's Palace of Phatthalung can still be visited there. In today's Phatthalung town a monument to Phraya Thukkharat (Chuai) stands at the Tha Miram junction; Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn laid its foundation stone on 16 August 1993.

Position on the map: Approximate coordinates of the Cha-uat district area, Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Present-day writers place the camp at Khlong Tha Samet in Tha Samet subdistrict. The exact position of the camp is not known.