Ok-khun Chamnan

Ok-khun Chamnan Chaichong was a Siamese diplomat who visited France and Rome on an embassy in 1688. He was preceded by the embassy of Kosa Pan in 1686.

Ok-khun Chamnan was a member of a first embassy to Portugal, which left Siam in March 1684. The Siamese embassy was accompanying a returning Portuguese embassy, which had been sent to Siam by king Pedro II. The embassy was also bearing presents for the King of France, Louis XIV, and was planning to send three ambassadors to visit him.

The first leg of the trip was made on a Siamese ship, commanded by a Portuguese captain. In Goa, after waiting more than a year, the embassy sailed on a Portuguese ship, which was wrecked off Cape Agulhas on 27 April 1686. After a series of adventures, Chamnan made his way across the tip of Africa to join the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. After several months, the embassy returned east through Batavia and returned to Siam in September 1687.

During his travels, Chamnan had learnt Portuguese, which predisposed him to further contacts with Western countries. Chamnan was present in Bangkok in October during the reception of the 1687 French embassy composed of five warships, led by Simon de la Loubère and Claude Céberet du Boullay, director of the French East India Company.

Ok-khun Chamnan was then a member of a mission of three Siamese mandarins dispatched to Louis XIV in France and Pope Innocent XI in Rome, by the Siamese King Narai in 1688. The two other envoys were Ok-khun Wiset Puban and Ok-muen Pipith Raja. They were followed three days later by three catechists from Tonkin, and five Siamese students sent to study at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris.

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