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Featured Destination: Thailand |
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| Text by Ed
Bailitis |
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Thailand's famous Chao Phraya
River, also known as the River of Kings, is not a great river in the same
vein as the Mekong. Nor is it particularly long. Nevertheless, for centuries
the river facilitated communication with the outside world as successive
nations made contact upstream from the Gulf of Siam with Thailand's ancient
capital Ayutthaya, now a world heritage site. In those times, the river
was merely called 'Menam,' a Thai generic term for river. Today, the river
has become synonymous with Bangkok.
 To
any modern-day visitor trapped in one of Bangkok's endless traffic
jams, the immediate overwhelming impression is that very little remains
of what many who previously traveled up the Chao Phraya found enchanting.
But perseverance has its rewards. You have to escape the streets that
have replaced many of the old canals, or khlongs, that once earned
Bangkok the moniker "Venice of the East," and head to the
Chao Phraya river to board one of the boats available at almost any
public landing. |
| Over the centuries, the riverine aspect
of Bangkok impressed a number of notable people who made their way
up the Chao Phraya. Among them was Dr Dan Bradley who introduced medicine
and the first newspaper to the country in 1844 and Anna Leonowens,
the English governess who taught English to the children and wives
of King Rama IV. Leonowens life was the inspiration for 'Anna and
the King.' The write Joseph Conrad called Bangkok, "The Oriental
capital which had yet suffered no white conqueror." |
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Bangkok's Oriental Hotel now has a suite
named after Conrad in the author's wing after he stayed there in 1888.
The Oriental Hotel, situated on the east bank overlooking the river,
was a modest seafarer's inn when Conrad stayed there. In fact, Bangkok
had only served as the capital for barely a hundred years. Since Conrad's
stay, the Oriental has developed a reputation for welcoming writers
of considerable repute, but patrons have also included pop-stars,
diplomats, princes and kings. Now an institution, the Oriental began
its ascent to the upper reaches oh the world's leading hotels in the
1960s.
Landmarks proliferate after Taksin Bridge among part of Bangkok's
most intensive modern development. Here, old cathedrals and churches
squeeze between modern high rises, a small part of the original Oriental
Hotel with its gardens extends down to the waters edge, and the neglected
old Customs House still evokes a sense of importance in the kingdom's
river trade.
Further along the west bank is the towering porcelain encrusted Wat
Arun, the Temple of Dawn, once known as Wat chang, the Elephant Temple.
In another era, in another form, it was here that King Taksin made
Thonburi, as the west bank is still called, his capital after the
fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese in 1767. |
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The section of the river just before Wat Arun was
not the original course of the Chao Phraya. The main course of the
river was the large loop formed by the Bangkok Yai and Bangkok Noi
canals. In 1543, a canal was dug to join the ends of the loops to
shorten the journey for the increasing number of ships arriving at
Ayutthaya. The Royal Palace was built in 1785 by King Taksin's successor,
a military commander called Chao Phraya Chakri who became King Rama
I of the Chakri dynasty, which continues with the current King Rama
IX.
Traveling along this section of the river, the Royal Palace, with
its golden spires and Khmer-style prangs, dominates the river with
an imposing presence undimmed by the passage of time. More than any
other sight along the river, the palace links the past with the present
effortlessly and infuses the Chao Phraya with a magical aura, especially
at night. Built on an artificial island, the palace formed the heart
of early Bangkok with the river as its life-giving artery. |
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The king bestowed an impressive new title on the capital,
"Krung Thep" or "City of Angels," which is a much-needed
abbreviation of what the Guinness Book of World Records list as the
world's longest place name. When translated into English, the complete
name of what the Thais call Bangkok is a mouthful of superlatives,
but it clearly reflects the supreme importance the Thais attach to
this city.
For Bangkok is the capital of everything: government and religion,
culture and commerce, education and economy, fun and fantasy; and
forty-five times larger than the country's second largest city, Chiang
Mai.
The riverine lure of old Bangkok, however, is along the Chao Phraya's
original course, on the Bangkok Yai and Bangkok Noi canals. Its floating
markets, a motley fleet of river craft, trading houses and temples,
are all still truly oriented toward water life. It provides a glimpse
into the past when the Thais considered themselves jao naam, or 'water
loads,' a feature Joseph Conrad used as the theme for his novel "Load
Jim." These canals can easily be reached by the numerous longtail
boats hovering around Ta Chang and Ta Tien. However, at the end of
each rainy season, the river and canals become clogged with water
hyacinths, a native Brazilian plant that King Rama V brought back
from a visit to Java.
Not much has changed on the original course of the Chao Phraya since
another great writer, Somerset Maugham, sat on the terrace of the
Oriental Hotel in 1923, watching the river craft struggle through
the flourishing hyacinths. Recuperating from a bout of malaria, his
recollection could have been written yesterday;
"You turn
down one of the main klongs, the Oxford street of Bangkok, and on
each side are teak houses on stilts and houseboats?finally there are
the pedestrians, single persons in a sampan who paddle to and fro
bent on some errand or idly as one might take a stroll down Piccadilly."
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 The
original course of the Chao Phraya at least, is an age away from the
current massive development on the east bank of the river in central
Bangkok. It remains a river journey of discovery that offers a certain
reassurance confirmed over time, that a visitor would never become
bored with a trip on the River of Kings. |
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| Ed Bailitis
is a freelance photographer based in Sydney, Australia. |
