BANGKOK NOI

Money Town

This walk takes us through the earliest part of the Thonburi settlement, when it was a customs port and garrison town for the capital of Ayutthaya, further upriver.

Duration: 4 hours

The earliest maps of Thonburi, dating from the latter half of the seventeenth century, show a very modest sized township. King Narai’s Wichaiprasit Fort, built in the 1660s and expanded by the French under the naval officer Chevalier de Forbin, sits formidably at the mouth of Klong Bangkok Yai, a watchful presence for ships heading upriver to Ayutthaya. With the fort at its southeast corner, a rectangle of fortifications spreads back almost as far as Klong Bangkok Noi, and outside of this rectangle the land is marked as being agricultural. On the east bank of the river, the Bangkok side, the corresponding fort built by the French is an enormous star-shape, and outside of this, again, the land is marked as farms and orchards. Clearly, Money Town had been essentially for officialdom and the military, while the community that depended upon it had lived largely outside the walls, on the river and alongside the canals, for this was the era when ordinary folk dwelled upon the water rather than on the usually marshy land. When King Taksin established Thonburi as his capital he took the original fortified area and strengthened it by having a canal dug as a moat, the southern end connecting to Klong Bangkok

Yai next to Wat Molilokkayaram, and the waterway passing behind Wat Arun, running parallel to the river until it reached Klong Bangkok Noi, at Wat Amarin. These three temples had all existed since the Ayutthaya era, with no one really knowing when they were founded, and indeed at this period they were all known by different names to those of today. Taksin made this area his royal court, building his palace directly next to Wichaiprasit Fort, with Wat Arun as his immediate neighbour on the other side. As a protection from marauders, he had the safest place in the kingdom.

Taksin’s moat still exists and it is possible to follow its course all the way across the heart of Thonburi, a journey that can be accomplished on foot within an hour and which will pass some of the old city’s most historic sites, skirting the naval dockyards before the canal finally runs to ground just before reaching Klong Bangkok Noi, the waterway having been filled in at this point by Rama V for the building of Thonburi Railway Station. Wichaiprasit Fort, however, is visible only from the Chao Phraya River, and the landward approach will reveal only a massive gate guarded by what must be some of the friendliest-looking sentries in the business. The fort is the home of the Royal Thai Navy, which fies the flag of its commander-in-chief here and fires offsalvos from its cannon on state occasions. Taksin’s palace has been absorbed into the fort compound and is similarly off-limits except to the occasional specialist tour that has to be invited in. These invitations are very, very hard to get if you are a non-Thai. (They won’t even let me in, although possibly they can’t be faulted on that.) Now known as Wang Derm, or Former Palace, it was occupied after Taksin’s time by a succession of princes. Three sons of Rama II were born here, two of who would become king as Rama iii and Rama IV, while the third would become Second King Pinklao. When the last royal resident, Prince Chakrapadibhongse died in 1900, Rama V granted ownership of the palace to the Royal Thai Navy, which manages it jointly with the Phra Racha Wang Derm Restoration Foundation. There are some architectural gems in here. Taksin had built the Throne Hall in Chinese style, and the Navy uses it as a reception hall and a conference centre. There is a large Chinese bell at the Throne Hall, the clapper being in the form of a dragon with a crystal ball in its mouth, while the bell stand is Thai in style, the capital of its pillar carved in the shape of a lotus flower and a naga that twists its body around the pillar. Two Chinese-style mansions are located close to the eastern gate of the palace, the inner one having been Taksin’s personal quarters and which is now used as Navy offices. A shrine to King Taksin is here, built late in the nineteenth century in a blending of Thai and Western styles, while nearby is a small modern shrine housing—curiously—whale bones that were found beneath the Taksin shrine when renovations were being undertaken.

The Navy in fact has a substantial frontage at Thonburi from the Bangkok Yai to the Bangkok Noi canals, denoting the importance that this stretch of water had for shipbuilding and military use from the Taksin era onwards. In the early years of the Ayutthaya period river barges manned by teams of rowers had been the chief element of Siamese shipping, as the capital was not a seaport and rivers and canals formed the main transportation highways. When wars erupted, the barges were fitted with cannons for battle. In 1608 the style began to change when King Ekatosarot requested assistance from the Dutch to send shipbuilders to build and equip a number of twoor three-mast brigs. By the latter half of the century the Siamese shipbuilding industry was flourishing, helped by the easy availability of timber, and both Western-style ships and Chinese junks were being built, along with oar-driven barges. Siam therefore had a good capability for building ships, and the vessels that Taksin constructed in the dockyards at Chantaburi in a very short period of time to fight the Burmese invader shows the degree of expertise there must have been. He was able, late in 1767, to move 5,000 men on a fleet of commandeered and new vessels along the Gulf coast, stopping on the way to quell unrest at Chonburi and then sailing up the Chao Phraya to Thonburi, which he took by force, executing the governor, Chao Thong-in, who had been placed in command by the Burmese. The fleet then travelled on to Ayutthaya and Taksin’s army attacked the Burmese at Pho Sam Ton, driving them back across the border. Thus the naval fleet played an important role in regaining Siam’s independence. In 1769, with Taksin now king and attempting to win back errant provinces, he led a fleet of 10,000 men with another 10,000 oarsmen to Nakhon Si Thammarat, in the south, where the governor had been unwilling to comply. The fleet passed through the mouth of the Samut Songkhram River, and was almost destroyed by a great storm, but the province was taken.

Taksin ordered the building of another hundred warships for future battles.

A sailor image marks the jetty for those visiting the Bangkok Naval Hospital.

During the reigns of Rama II and Rama lll, with China trade fuelling Siam’s growth, junks were the most widely built vessels in Siam. The reign of Rama IV saw the new era of steamships, and the beginning of Western trade. The first steamship was built in Bangkok in 1865, 22.8 metres (75 ft) long and 9.14 metres (30 ft) wide, with a 15 horsepower engine. Warships in the reign of Rama IV also started using steam propulsion, first with side paddle wheels then with rear propellers. Eventually, the hulls were also changed from wood to iron. As the nineteenth century progressed, and the volume of Western shipping increased, shipbuilding and repair was undertaken on both sides of the river. During this period the Siamese military forces were regrouped along British lines. Before, there had been no navy. The fighting forces were regarded as soldiers, whether they went by land or water. Now, under Rama V, the Royal Navy was formed.

(Language clings stubbornly to the old ways: the Thai word for soldier is taharn, and for sailor is taharn rua, or “boat soldief’. (A member of the Royal Thai Air Force is a taharn agaht, or “air soldief’.) Early in 1890, Rama V officially designated the land directly to the south of Wat Rakhang as the Thonburi Naval Dockyard, and a decade later Taksin’s palace was brought into the Navy complex, being designated in 1906 as the Royal Thai Navy Academy. After World War II it became apparent that Thonburi was no longer large enough to build and maintain modern fighting ships, and other Navy bases were opened at Samut Prakharn and Sattahip, near to Pattaya. This part of Thonburi, however, remains dotted with Navy buildings, including the Department of Naval Engineering, the Bangkok Naval Hospital, and the Royal Thai Navy Crematorium, which is attached to Wat Khrua Wan, a temple noted for having the most complete and best preserved set of Jataka paintings in Thailand.

When Rama I moved the capital across the river and Wang Derm ceased to be a royal palace, the two temples that had previously been encompassed in the compound by King Taksin were released to become public temples once more.

Wat Molilokkayaram stands at the mouth of Taksin’s moat, tucked in beside Wichaiprasit Fort, but to casual visitors it is almost invisible and indeed takes some effort to actually find. Approaching by road over the bridge across Klong Bangkok Yai, the temple is visible fleetingly as a huddle of red roofs, and a U-turn is required to enter the tiny lane that takes its name from the temple and which will lead the visitor over the moat and into the compound, which is surprisingly large, covering five acres of land. When Taksin established his court, this temple was already here. It was known as Wat Tai Talat, which means “the temple behind the market”, so there must have been a market here right against the walls of the fort. Taksin incorporated the temple into his palace boundary. Under Siamese tradition no monks are allowed to reside in a temple in a royal compound between dusk and dawn, the religious activities being reserved for the monarchy, but when Rama I moved the capital across the river he allowed monks to take up residence. The oldest building in the compound is the wiharn, which, oddly, Taksin used for storing salt, and the building is still known as Phra Wiharn Chag Klua. The wiharn is a mix of Thai and Chinese styles, with ceramic roof tiles, and gable spires and ridges decorated with stucco. Rama I built the ubosot, which has very fne Siamese painting on the interior walls and the ceiling, and beautifully carved and lacquered door and window frames. A library was later added, an unusual construction with masonry on the first level, a wooden structure at the second, and a chedi at each end. There are deep alcoves around the base housing statues in military uniforms, although they have badly deteriorated. The building is now living quarters for the monks.

The temple, which was upgraded to second tier royal status in the reign of Rama VI, has been a significant one for the Chakri dynasty. Rama II, iii, IV and V all made additions and renovations, and Rama VI elevated it to the royal second tier. Most of the sons of Rama ii, including the future kings Rama iii and IV and Second King Pinklao, had their elementary study here. Wat Molilokkayaram has evolved over the years to become a study centre for the Pali language and in 1991 was appointed as the monastic educational institute providing Dharma education. Temples fiom elsewhere in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand send students here, where there are twenty teachers and up to two hundred monks and novices studying each year.

Wat Arun, of course, needs little introduction. It is one of Thailand’s best-known symbols, and its Khmer-styleprang decorates the logo of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. To most visitors it is just a dramatic spire, and those who puff their way to the upper terrace are certainly rewarded with a gorgeous view of the river and the city beyond, but the temple is a complex place with deep symbolic meanings and a beauty that continues to reveal itself, no matter how often one visits. No one knows when Wat Arun was founded, but it dates back to the Ayutthaya era, when it was known as Wat Makok, denoting that this area was used for growing the type of plum that the Thais call makok, and lending weight to the theory that Bangkok, or Bang Kok, or Bang Makok, gained its name from the surrounding plum orchards. The temple appears to have had little significance until General Taksin, on his way back to Ayutthaya with his fleet intent on driving out the Burmese, arrived here as dawn was breaking. When he became king and established Thonburi as the capital, he had the temple incorporated within his royal compound, renovated it, and gave the name Wat Chaeng, which means “Temple of the Dawn”. In 1779 the Emerald Buddha was brought back from Vientiane by General Chakri and enshrined here for five years until being transferred by Rama I across the river to the purpose-built Wat Phra Kaeo. The mystique and holiness of the Emerald Buddha was conferred upon Wat Chaeng, which has continued throughout the Chakri dynasty. Wat Chaeng was the crown temple of Rama ii, who renamed it Wat Arun, after the Hindu god of the dawn, and whose ashes are buried under a Buddha statue in the ordination hall, the face of the image believed to have been moulded in the king’s likeness.

The temple appears to have had a very modest-sized prang during its early days, thought to be less than two metres high, and construction of its present structure began only in the time of Rama ll, who passed away when it was still in the foundation stage. Rama iii completed construction, and although there is some dispute as to how high the prang actually is, the generally accepted figure is 67 metres (219 ft), with a circumference around the base of234 metres (767 ft). Whatever the height, it is the highest prang in Thailand. A prang symbolises Mount Meru, the mountain that stands in the middle of Hindu-Buddhist cosmology, and in the case of Wat Arun it rises from the fabulous region of Himavant, which is covered in forests and lakes and is the home of sages, imps, demons and dragons, represented here by carved and moulded figures against a background of porcelain flowers and leaves. The main prang is called the phra prang, and there are four smaller prangs at the base, known as prang thit, symbolising the four continents and housing statues of the gods within alcoves. The phra prang has four terraces, and four mondops, or pavilions bearing images, are located on the second terrace.

There are sixteen structures of importance within this large site, which covers thirteen acres, and many of them have been built or changed during successive reigns. The wiharn was built in the reign of Rama I, and rebuilt in the reigns of both Rama II and iii. Inside the wiharn is the principal Buddha image, brought from Vientiane in 1858 and named Phra Arun. The ubosot dates from the time of Rama II and is distinctive with its yellow and green tiled roofs, with the eight metal statues of elephants near the entrance having been cast in 1846. Seated inside the peripheral gallery are 120 Buddha images, and there are 144 stone lions, 112 soldiers, and 16 noble-men, all Chinese in style. The eight boundary markers, the sema, are housed in marble porches and intricately carved. There are six riverside pavilions, all Chinese in style, built from green sandstone and dating from the reign of Rama iii, and the mondop housing the Buddha footprint also dates from this period and was designed with a Chinese-style roof.

Those in search of history rather than symbolism should visit the old ubosot, which dates back to the earliest days of the temple and is located in front of the prang. The Siam Chronicles record that King Taksin lived in this ordination hall for a brief period before his execution, and his bedstead, a modest teak slab, can be seen there today Near to the old ordination hall is the original chapel, dating back to the same era. Near here is a gilded statue of Nai Raung, a monk who burned himself to death in 1790 in front of the sermon hall, promising that if he achieved Nirvana, he would make a nearby lotus bloom. The lotus duly bloomed and when the monk was properly cremated his ashes turned green, white, yellow and purple. The ashes were kept in the hall for sermons. Another pavilion honours in a similar way Nai N ok, a monk who burned himself to death in 1861 in front of the old ordination hall. A small area in the garden, under a bodhi tree, has become a shrine with decapitated figures placed here in commemoration of the death of King Taksin.

There is a strong Chinese influence in the architecture of Wat Arun, vying with the Khmer influence, the mingling of Hindu and Buddhist symbolism, and Siamese tradition and identity. China had played a significant role in supporting Taksin’s campaigns against the Burmese and in establishing his kingdom, and he was greatly in debt to the Chinese at the time of his death. During the reigns of Rama I, II and iii, almost all of Siam’s trade was with China, reaching its peak under Rama III, whose enthusiasm manifested itself in Chinese styling for many of the temples he built or restored. Chinese junks shipping out of Siam loaded with rice or timber would need to be loaded with bulk goods to act as ballast when they returned, and much of this was crockery, porcelain and rock and stone carvings. Although largely foundation and building material, a useful commodity in muddy delta country, some of it would have been good quality and delivered for a specific purpose. The phra prang of Wat Arun is studded with porcelain, a mixture of Chinese and Siamese, which catches the light and causes the structure to glitter, and craftsmen have fashioned porcelain flowers and leaves. The stone figures in and around the temple structures and in the garden are often beautifully carved and provide a valuable insight as to how the Chinese looked and dressed at that time, and there are also depictions of other races, such as the European sailors and soldiers that can be seen in the gardens.

The little paved lane that runs behind Wat Arun, Wang Derm Road, is one of the most pleasant thoroughfares in Bangkok, with the temple wall on one side and old houses with eating places and cafes on the other and in the small sois that lead through to Arun Amarin Road. Walk the few metres back to the beginning of Taksin’s moat, pass under the bridge, follow the footpath along Bangkok Yai canal,

And another ancient community will be revealed.

As we have seen on the other side of the canal, there has been a Muslim community on this part of Klong Bangkok Yai since before the Thonburi period. They were Cham Muslims, coming from parts of what are now Cambodia and Vietnam, and they arrived in the first half of the sixteenth century as labourers to help with the river works that eased navigation along the Chao Phraya, and as mercenaries to fight in the war against Burma that saw the first siege of Ayutthaya in 1548. Some of the Cham who helped dig the canal that led to the creation of the Bangkok Yai and Noi canals stayed on the bank of the Yai. They were certainly at Thonburi during the reign of King Songtham (16111628), as a surviving record written on a palm leaf notes a soldier named Jiam attempting to send a set of garments to his father on the Bangkok Yai canal. Another record notes the construction of a mosque in 1688, during King Narai’s reign, by a Siamese Muslim of Persian lineage named Okya Rajavangsansenee, who was a commander in charge of the 400 French-led mercenaries hired by Narai to man Wichaiprasit Fort, largely comprising North Africans, presumably Muslims.

There had also been Cham Muslims living in Ayutthaya, where they made their homes on rafts on the waterways and worked as farmers, boat builders and traders. When Ayutthaya fell and Thonburi was founded, they sailed their rafts down the river and joined the existing community. So large did the Cham community become that they occupied both banks of the canal, with mosques on both sides. Tonson Mosque, here on the north bank, is the oldest mosque in Bangkok, while Kudi Khao on the south bank dates from the time of Rama I.

Tonson Mosque was originally a teak structure raised on a platform and roofed with terracotta tiles. In style it followed the Siamese pattern. In 1827, in the reign of Rama II, the mosque was rebuilt as a brick structure, again following the Siamese style and with elaborate mouldings on its stucco-clad gables. By the middle of the twentieth century this building had deteriorated so badly it was completely rebuilt, being finished in 1954, this time as a reinforced concrete structure with a traditional Islamic dome. The arched mihrab, the pavilion indicating the direction of Mecca, carries an engraved teak tablet that is believed to have come from a mosque in Ayutthaya, and which displays burn marks. A century-old copy of the Koran has been written in very fine script using either a fish bone or rice husk, and is contained in a decorated teak box with mother-of-pearl inlay. A prominent feature is a suspended lamp that has a square brass lampshade inlaid on all sides with green glass and engraved in memory of Rama V. In the mosque compound, two older buildings have survived: a structure erected to welcome visiting royalty in 1915, and an octagonal pavilion built in 1930. The graveyard is also of historical interest, containing the final resting place of many prominent members of the Muslim community, including high-ranking court officials and royal consorts.

The Cham are the remnants of the Champa kingdom, which prevailed in what is now southern and central Vietnam and parts of southern Cambodia from the seventh through to the eighteenth centuries. They had used Sanskrit as their scholarly language and were initially Hindu, but Arab maritime trade from the tenth century onwards saw the spread of Islam into parts of the kingdom. The late fifteenth century saw much of Champa wiped out, as the Vietnamese moved south. Early in the seventeenth century, as the Ming Dynasty collapsed, thousands of Chinese refugees poured into the Cham region. Many Cham fled their homelands during this period, some to Cambodia, some to Siam, some to the Malay peninsula, and some to the Chinese island of Hainan. Although avowedly Muslim, the communities at Tonson and Kudi Khao have largely been absorbed into the Thai identity, and are no longer aware of their Cham ancestry. They study Arabic, in order to read the Koran, and they celebrate Muslim festivals such as Eid, but they speak Thai and regard themselves as Thai. Their children attend Thai schools, which in this district are either Buddhist or Catholic oriented and where provision is made for them as Muslims, but otherwise they follow the standard Thai curriculum. Aside from eschewing pork, their food is essentially Thai, the stalls and eating-houses around the mosques serving noodles, and beef, chicken and seafood. The casual visitor passing through these communities would probably not notice any difference to the traditional Thai Buddhist communities in the city, except for the sight of the occasional woman wearing a headscarf.

The Cham Muslims are Sunni, but as if to emphasise yet another level of tolerance in this most tolerant of societies, there is another Muslim community almost directly next door, this time formed of Shias, and with their own mosque, Kudi Charoen Phat. This can be found by following the footpath from Tonson Mosque past the big old bodhi tree and heading alongside the canal where within a couple of minutes it leads to Itsaraphap Road. The mosque is on the corner, and is in yet another distinctive architectural style, a Western panya building, a form that was a familiar sight alongside the canal during the reign of Rama V. A single-storey structure with a green tiled roof, it has no dome. Kudi Charoen Phat was founded by a group of Muslims who had played an active role in court life during the Ayutthaya era, and who had resettled here when Thonburi became the capital. A Muslim place of worship registering with the Ministry of Interior becomes known officially as a mosque, or masyid in Thai, and the fact that Kudi Charoen Phat retains the old word kudi in its name indicates that it is not registered as such, and is run quite independently under its own administrative council.

Around the bodhi tree that stands between the two Muslim communities are clustered the buildings of an Ayutthaya-era Buddhist temple, Wat Hong Rattanaram. Founded by a wealthy Chinese named Nai Hong, it was designated a royal monastery by King Taksin, being adjacent to the palace, and was a significant centre of religious education. Taksin had the temple area expanded greatly, and a large ordination hall was constructed in front of the old one, together with other structures, and consequently the compound today sprawls over an extensive area. More renovations took place in the time of Rama III. The grand ordination hall is built of brick and lime, and its twotiered roof has gables decorated with the design known as hamsa, with two niches housing gilded stucco hamsa figures, facing each other, and the projected eaves supported by square columns and brackets with more hamsa figures. The door arch has elements of both Chinese and Western styles, and the door and window panels are finely decorated with stucco-moulded figures. Within the ordination hall there are tempera paintings in glass frames depicting the story of the Emerald Buddha, painted during the reigns of Rama III and Rama iv. The wiharn houses an ancient golden Buddha image that had previously been encased in lime, the image having been discovered when its casing was broken. It dates from the Sukhothai period, and an old U-Thong script can be seen etched along the base. The scripture hall is carved with a floral motif from the early Rattanakosin period and is used as monks’ living quarters, while the bell tower is pure white, built in brick and mortar, and is Chinese in style.

Tonson Mosque was founded by Cham Muslims and is the oldest mosque in Bangkok.

Occasionally, in this urban area, one stumbles across temples that could easily be in the middle of the countryside, such is their atmosphere of detachment from the outside world. Wat Ratchasittharam, on Itsaraphap Soi 23, is one. Standing by the side of a small canal, and with two chedis at the entrance, the temple is set amongst lovely old rain trees. During the final days of Ayutthaya, a forest monk known as the Venerable Suk Kaithuean (1733-1822) had played an important role in promulgating the meditation practices that had originated with the historical Buddha. A forest monk undertakes what the Thais call thudong, which is the ascetic practice of wandering the forests developing themselves spiritually by becoming one with nature. During the Thonburi era the Venerable Suk had settled at Wat Thahoi, on the outskirts of the now-ruined Ayutthaya, where his affinity towards wild creatures had them nesting in the temple grounds. Suk appears to have been a charismatic and possibly unpredictable man, the name Kaithuean being a nickname that translates as “wild chicken”, but his form of ancient meditation was important and authentic during this time of turmoil, and Rama I invited him to Bangkok where he was installed at Wat Phlab in 1782 as head of meditation instruction.

At the same time Wat Ratchasittharam was built adjacent to Wat Phlab and the two temples were merged. Rama ii, when he was king, studied here, and Suk was appointed Supreme Patriarch in 1819. During the reign of Rama II his system of meditation was promoted as the main medium of instruction for the entire monastic community of Siam, and Suk was meditation instructor to the young princes Jessadabodindra and Mongkut, who became Rama iii and Rama IV, respectively. His system of meditation, however, eventually fell into disuse. It did not die out completely, as he kept records in the form of samut khoi, the traditional Siamese folded manuscript books, and it is taught today at Wat Ratchasittharam as the Matchima meditation system, the home of this form of meditation being one of the very few places in Thailand to still teach it. Wat Ratchasittharam attracts devotees to this form of meditation, and also because of its very fine mural of the death of the Lord Buddha. The outside wall depicts the scene of the Royal Barge Procession. The temple is a second-tier royal temple. Inside the compound can be seen the teak building that was used as the residence for Rama II when he entered the monkhood.

Further along Itsaraphap Road the road lifts to pass over Klong Morn, the main canal that bisects Money Town between the Bangkok Yai and Noi canals, and as it does so an enormous temple building can be seen rising high above the bridge. This is the recently constructed dormitory building for Wat Chinoros, a temple that is built to a far more modest scale than its living accommodation and which dates back to 1836. The princely monk Krom Phra Poramanuchit Chinoros, who was one of Siam’s most famous poets, and who became Supreme Patriarch in 1851, built the temple. The ceiling of the ubosot is painted red and decorated with naga fret-work covered with gold leaf, and there are unusual murals here that depict in map form the temple, the canal, the river and the Grand Palace, although the paintings are in a sad state of deterioration. There are two other unusual aspects to Wat Chinoros. One is the curved shape of the ubosot, which gives an odd distorting effect, while the other is the heaped cannonballs that form the sema stones. Venerable Chinoros, who was a son of Rama I, was also known as Prince Wasukri. He had been ordained at Wat Pho and resided there for much of his life. He passed away in 1853 and his ashes are buried there at what is now known as Wasukri Residence.

One of the first acts King Taksin performed after driving out the Burmese in 1769 and establishing Thonburi as the capital was to form a commission that would work to ensure the purity of Buddhism continued, even though the temples and libraries of Ayutthaya had been burned and destroyed. A temple named Wat Bang Wa Yai that existed on the riverbank near to the king’s palace was given royal status and used by the king to host a congress of senior monks, the stipulation being that they must be learned both in the Dharma and in meditation. Taksin was conducting a military campaign in the south of Siam, where Nakhon Sri Thammarat, an ancient kingdom that had always had shaky allegiance to Siam, had made a bid for independence following the fall of Ayutthaya. Thammarat, on the east coast of the Malay peninsula, had for centuries been an important trading post, and in the seventeenth century British, Portuguese and Dutch merchants had established factories there. It was also a centre for Buddhist study and pilgrimage, Wat Phra Mahathat being as old as the city itself and housing a tooth relic of the Buddha.

The former residence of Rama I at Wat Rakhang, converted into a library.

Taksin had the Buddhist scriptures, the Tripitaka, brought up from the south for the monks to study under the supervision of a learned monk named Phra Archan Si, who was appointed abbot of Wat Bang Wa Yai. Rama I continued the royal patronage of the temple. During the late Thonburi period he had used a set of timber buildings near to Taksin’s palace as his residence, and he moved these to the temple compound for use as a library. During the renovation work a particularly melodious bell, or rakhang, was found in the eastern part of the compound. The king ordered the bell shipped across the river for installation in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and had five new bells sent back in exchange. He also decreed that the temple be renamed Wat Rakhang, the Temple of the Bell.

The most picturesque way to approach Wat Rakhang is by ferry, boarding at Tha Chang Pier and disembarking at the jetty with its two uniformed matelot statues, for the pier also services the Naval Hospital next door, which provides medical treatment for sailors and their families. Vendors line the short distance from the jetty to the temple, and weekends, especially Sundays, are a lively time to visit for there is something almost like a carnival atmosphere. Several vendors sell turtles that merit-makers buy and release into the river, and a number of urchins stand by with wide grins waiting to dive into the warm brown waters and retrieve the hapless creatures ready for the next worshipper. Being a turtle in Bangkok is not exactly a blast. There are bells everywhere. Two beautiful blue-and-gold bells hang in front of the ubosot, there are bell designs on the door and the window shutters, and if devotees ring each of the long row of bells hanging in the courtyard they will be blessed with good luck; which explains why the air is continually filled with the tinkling and clanging of bells. The five bells presented by Rama I hang in a bell tower to the front of the temple, four of them painted a light blue, the centre bell a dark blue.

A few steps from the bell tower is the king’s former residence, now known as the Tripitaka Hall. When the buildings were moved to the temple grounds a pond was dug so that they could stand on stilts in the water, and thereby keep insects away from the paper and parchment documents. That has now been filled in, and the building stands framed in green trees, a classical piece of Siamese teak architecture. Stained in red ochre are three buildings, each with a distinctive gable. Entering the front door, one is standing inside the central room. The unit on the right side is the reading room, and that on the left the retiring room. The inside walls are covered with murals depicting the daily life of that time, painted by Acharn Nak, who was a monk in the time of Rama I. The paints used to create these murals were tempera mixed with latex, a form of colouring that yields neither shading nor the brightness that can be seen in works of art created in the Ayutthaya period, but the artist was working in a time of great turmoil for Siam and possibly paints from China or India were not easily available.

There is a pleasant little stony lane here, and if the lane is followed around to the left one comes to the former home of a remarkable lady. Khunying Supatra Singholka, who passed away in 1993 at the age of 83, was from an aristocratic family. Her father was Phya Rajamountre, a noble in the court of Rama vi, and her mother was Khunying Boonpan. Rama VI was the literary king, a monarch who produced many learned works in addition to plays. One of his papers was entitled “The Status of Women is an Indicator of a Society’s Civilisation”, and it was a profound and controversial work for its era and the conservative Siamese beliefs of the time. Supatra herself first became involved with women’s rights when she entered Thammasat University as a law student, and she made this her mission in life, helping to produce legislation to amend laws that discriminated against women. Amongst her achievements over the years were the obtaining of equal rights for wives to handle legal matters without a husband’s prior consent, in ensuring a husband’s automatic approval of his wife’s business dealings, and other changes in the law relating to marriage registration and divorce alimony.

In addition to being a very prominent lawyer, Supatra was a successfiil businesswoman, the owner of Bangkok’s largest ferry and express boat business. She also owned a large area of land along the riverbank here in the vicinity of Wat Rakhang, and she left a very prominent legacy Firstly there is Supatra’s house, which has been converted into a stylish restaurant named Supatra River House. On the terrace each weekend is staged a theatrical display, the players being from the Patravadi Theatre next door. Owner Patravadi Meechuthon is the daughter of Supatra, and one of Thailand’s most accomplished actresses. The theatre is very much the preserve of ancient Siamese traditions, in addition to exploring more modern forms, and there is a small shop at the entrance where khon masks are displayed. Supatra’s other daughter, Supapan Pichaironnarongsongkram, has inherited her mother’s business acumen, and today operates the family Chao Phraya Express riverboat service.

Opposite the Naval Hospital is a little alley named Soi Arun Amarin 23, and here, in the houses straddling Taksin’s moat, is a community that is known as Ban Matoom and which for generations has been famous for selling and preserving the fruit of the bael tree (matoom in Thai), a tree that is native to India but which has spread through parts of Southeast Asia. The bael fruit is the size of a large grapefruit and has a woody shell that is so hard it has to be cracked open with a hammer or a machete. The pulp has a floral aroma and a bitter-sweet flavour, and can be eaten fresh, boiled with syrup, dried, or taken as a particularly refreshing drink. Today, there are only four families in Ban Matoom selling bael fruit, a contrast to the past when the entire community made a living from it. The families buy the fresh fruit from Sukhothai and Phichit provinces. The best time to visit is from July to April, when the fruit is in season, but outside this period the community sells preserved bael and bael fruit tea.

Following the Ban Matoom alley round into the lane that runs alongside Taksin’s moat, across Itsaraphap 39 and into the continuation of the lane, which becomes Soi Ban Chang Lo, one passes through yet another community that has recently become almost extinct. Ban Chang Lo is where Buddha images were cast, the earliest craftsmen having come down from Ayutthaya during the Thonburi era and settled here, which at the time was just outside the palace walls. These were foundry workers, skilled at mould making and metal casting, and during Taksin’s time and on into the early Rattanakosin periods they produced weapons such as swords, guns and cannon for the army. One of their masterpieces is a cannon named Phra Piroon, now on display at the National Museum. They started to focus on making Buddha statues during the reigns of Rama II and III, when both kings built and restored many temples, and this continued through to the modern era. Each family specialised in a certain skill, such as sculpting, making moulds, mixing gold, pouring hot metal, and polishing and decorating with gold lacquer and mirrors. They used clay moulds until Corrado Feroci introduced plaster moulds, which can be used half a dozen times or more. Pollution control regulation in 1992 forced the craftsmen to move elsewhere, mostly to Nakhon Pathom’s Phutthamonthon area. There is some small-scale work that is still done here, and a few offices continuing to take orders for the factories, but otherwise this is now just a quiet residential lane. Substantial space was needed for some of the image-making activities and several families have capitalised on the freeing up of their land, so that in recent years new residential developments have appeared in this area.

Strolling north along Soi Ban Chang Lo, turning left into Phran Nok Road and then right into Itsaraphap Road will lead to a small alley named Soi Khao Mao 1, which runs behind Wat Sutthawat. A couple of minutes down here, just when it seems the visitor is heading into a pleasant but featureless residential area, there is a junction with a signboard that advises he is in Ban Khao Mao, another Thonburi-era community that has known days of greatness but which is now sadly diminished. In the days when this land was fruit orchards threaded by waterways, boats would arrive from rice-growing districts carrying young green rice, khao mao. The community, which traces its roots directly from Khao Mao village in the Uthai district in Ayutthaya, would pound the green rice and make dishes such as crispy fried noodles (khao mao mee), toffee (kalamae med), and desserts such as khao niew daeng. Khao mao was a good food supply during times of war since it can be kept for a long time and becomes soft and edible once sprinkled with water. King Taksin kept his troops supplied with khao mao as regular army rations. Ban Khao Mao supplied the households of royalty and nobility with traditional Siamese desserts and other delicacies during the Thonburi period and throughout the nineteenth century. A few families here still make and sell khao mao, and there is a small museum nearby, in the grounds of Wat Sutthawat, that tells of this and other traditional skills that once flourished in the area.

Many of the refugees who managed to get out of Ayutthaya when the Burmese destroyed the city were skilled craftsmen who travelled down the river to Thonburi, where they once again flourished, briefly under Taksin and then to a greater degree under the Chakri dynasty, as Bangkok was founded. One little band of travellers set up a community in Thonburi on the bank of the Bangkok Noi canal. They called their village Ban Bu, after the trade they had brought with them. The word bu doesn’t translate directly, but it means to hammer gently and rhythmically, as a smithy does when he is forming something delicate like a plate or cup. These people were bronze smiths, making the ornamental bronze bowls and goblets for the temples and palaces of Ayutthaya.

Ancient timber houses straggle along the bank of the Bangkok Noi canal beside Wat Suwannaram, and there is a century-old market hall, Wat Thong Talat, with a handsome truss-beam roof. Ban Bu main street is nothing more than a pathway a few feet wide, just broad enough to take the motorcycles that buzz down here, past the temple and over the humped bridge that crosses a small inlet from the canal. There is a pleasantly timeless feel, but time has changed the village of the bronzesmiths, for the number of manufacturers has dwindled to just one, a family-owned firm named Jiam Sangsajja. They are now the only craftsmen in Bangkok producing the traditional stonewashed bronze bowls known as khan long hin. There used to be a tiny shop on the main street but it burned down a few years ago, set alight when a gas canister in the neighbouring house exploded in the early hours of the morning, says Metta Salanon, matriarch of the business. A gazebo has replaced the shop, and the small timber house that stood behind it now serves as Metta’s office and showroom. Metta is a tiny, compact woman with glossy hair and a cherubic smile. The fire had done the image of the business no good, and what was a dying trade now has only a few years left. The two remaining smiths are now about sixty years old. When they retire, there will be no one else to replace them, as nobody is interested in learning this craft.

The workshop is a ramshackle mix of corrugated zinc and timber, lit mainly by daylight from the open doorway. The heat hits you straight away, and the smell of burning coals and red hot metal hangs heavily in the air. There is a startling plop and hiss as someone tosses something hot into a tub of cold water. Two open furnaces protected by structures like zinc sentry boxes throw out a cherry-red glow. Here sit the two smithies, each with a helper, practicing their ancient art. A smithy places slivers of copper, tin and a gold known as thong mah lau into an earthen mould and heats it for about ten minutes over the charcoal. The contents melt and blend into liquid bronze, which is poured into a mould called a din ngann. The bronze forms a pancake shape. The smithy bakes the flat metal until it turns hard like stone, washing it in water to make it harder. He and his helper then alternately beat the metal into its finished form, the final stage being known as karn laai, in which a much smaller hammer is used for final shaping. A middle-aged lady carries this out, and the remainder of the tiny workforce is also female, three women carrying out the cleaning and polishing stages. In earlier days the craftsmen would polish their work with fine stones wrapped in a piece of cloth, hence the name “stone washed”. Nowadays they grind the mould into powder and use that instead, a method that gives a depth and lustre unmatched by the metal polish used by modern factories. The bronze glows in the light that filters through the doorway, and if you ping a large bowl with your finger, it gives out the resonant sound of a temple bell.

Ban Bu is tucked in directly behind Wat Suwannaram, a temple whose beauty is at distinct odds with its grim history. King Taksin had used the grounds of this Ayutthaya-era temple as a place to execute a large number of Burmese prisoners of war, who were brought down from a holding camp at Bang Kaew in Phitsanulok Province to meet their fate. Quite why Taksin chose the temple for this purpose is unknown. There is, however, nothing to mark the temple’s former notoriety. The original building no longer stands, having been demolished by Rama I, who then had the present structure erected.

Off to the side of the temple a royal crematorium was built (it was Siam’s first funeral facility built of concrete) and used until the reign of Rama V, when it was demolished. Bangkok Noi District Office occupies the site today.

Enter the temple ubosot and there is the most exquisitely painted interior, with frescoes on all four walls painted by Master Thongyu and Master Kongpae, two of the leading artists of Rama iii’s reign. They had worked side by side here, and Suwannaram is one of the greatest surviving examples of first period Rattanakosin mural painting. This style followed the traditions of Ayutthaya, being essentially light and airy and with a two-dimensional form that pre-dated the Siamese use of perspective and which lends a zigzag appearance to the scenes and episodes depicted. There is, however, a curious perspective that gives the impression the viewer is looking down from above, into the scenes, and below the stylised representations of celestial and noble beings can be seen the antics of the common folk. Often comical, and always very human, they are a record of everyday life of that time. Here there is added interest for the visitor with scenes depicting European characters, including a man in late-seventeenth century dress peering over battlements with a telescope and another taking a pop with a rifle, possibly representing the siege of Bangkok. Another scene shows foreign troops clad in turbans, and judging by the style of dress and their facial characteristics these are believed to be Persians, there having been an influential group of Persian merchants at Ayutthaya. The golden image of the Buddha is in the Subduing Mara position. A curious tradition is attached to this image, which is believed to have the power of fulfilling wishes for those who perform a forfeit. The forfeit is known as wing ma, which means “horse riding”, and the petitioner must run around the ubosot three times, straddling a banana tree “horse” and neighing loudly as he goes. An obliging local once demonstrated this for me. It is highly recommended that anyone performing wing ma has a group of understanding friends present.

A little further along the bank of Klong Bangkok Noi leads to the railway line. Opened in 1903, it was first built to link to Petchaburi on the west coast of the Gulf of Siam, and then down to Butterworth, in Malaya. A spur was later added to Kanchanaburi, in the west, near the Burma border. The trains had left from Thonburi Station, which was designed by the German architect Karl Dohring and built at the mouth of the Bangkok Noi canal, but as there were no bridges across the Chao Phraya at that time, passengers departing from the Bangkok side had first to take a boat across to the railway station. Rama V had ordered the building of Thonburi Station, filling in part of Taksin’s moat and moving a Muslim community that lived here, donating land on the opposite bank of the canal for them. An Ayutthaya-era Buddhist temple, Wat Amarintharam, stands on the edge of the station land and lost three of its four assembly halls, consequently becoming known by the locals as bot noi, or small chapel.

A Japanese locomotive outside Thonburi Station, originally the southern rail terminus.

Following the restructuring of the railway administration system, the decision was taken to build a bridge further upriver, at Bang Sue, and this, the Rama vi Bridge, opened in 1927. It was the first bridge across the Chao Phraya. Trains for the south now departed from Hua Lampong Station, and Thonburi was left to service only the western line. When the Japanese forces occupied Siam in 1941, they used the station as their base for what became known as the Death Railway, the railway line they laid up to Three Pagodas Pass and through to Burma. The Allied forces bombed and destroyed Thonburi Station but after the war it was rebuilt in the same style, a European design in pale red brick with cream detailing and pale blue window shutters, the oblong structure topped with a square clocktower. There were, however, few trains: the line is used by commuters living in the Thonburi suburbs and the neighbouring province of Nakhon Pathom, and by tourists travelling to the Bridge on the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi, but its old status as an important terminus had ended. The station was decommissioned late in 2003, and Bangkok Noi Station, 800 metres down the line, became the terminus and was renamed Thonburi Station. For almost a decade the original station remained empty, with grand plans swirling around for a transport museum and railway park. The station became, briefly, a tourist centre. Then it was used as a setting for a Jackie Chan film, Around the World in 80 Days, and the work of the film crew who had transformed it into Agra Station remained visible for several years. The sidings and railway sheds became the haunt of railway anoraks, as there were some picturesque old steam and diesel locomotives in storage there. The market that had grown up next to the station was persuaded to move down the line to the replacement terminus, and the station building became a lonely and abandoned place. No one knew what was going to happen.

But eventually, as is the way in Bangkok, there came a sudden change. Neighbouring Siriraj Hospital had bought up the land, and they have built a new wing and other facilities whilst retaining the old station building, which has become a museum for the hospital, the

Siriraj Phimuksthan Museum. The station building is a little difficult to find now, being in the shadow of modern concrete and next to an underpass, but it still faces across the river and Klong Bangkok Noi, and one must be thankful that it has been spared demolition. Sentimentalists such as myself regret the disappearance of the railway land, and the fact that the station no longer looks like a station. But there is an attractive small park on the riverbank, and an old steam locomotive, a Mikado 2-8-2, bearing the number 950 and built by Mitsubishi in 1950, has been moved from the sidings and placed here. The engine had been a non-working one, partially cannibalised to supply parts for the operational steam locos that are still rolled out on special occasions. As for the replacement terminus, it remains in appearance a wayside station, and there is not enough space to store much in the way of railway memorabilia, beyond some decrepit rolling stock that rots away, unloved, amongst the weeds on the canal bank.

Siriraj Hospital takes up a large area of land on the riverfront, and except for the small original building, dating from 1888, is mainly a collection of featureless concrete blocks. The hospital was founded by Rama V as Siam’s first modern hospital, and is now one of the country’s largest. As part of Mahidol University it is also an important training institute. Few realise, however, that inside this sprawling complex, which is rather like entering a small town, there are at least eight museums, all of them open to the public. Several date back to the early years of the last century, and have grown out of the hospital’s educational facilities.

The Parasitology Museum predictably shows various kinds of parasites such as whipworms and roundworms, with models of their life cycles. The Ellis Pathological Museum shows the evolution of medicine in Thailand. At the Veekit Veeranuvati Museum is a display of ancient medical equipment and diagnostic methods, while the Ouy Ketusinh Museum is devoted to Thai traditional medicine, massage and herbal treatments. I especially enjoy the Congdon Anatomical

Museum, founded in 1922 by Professor Edgar Davidson Congdon, who was sent to Bangkok by the Rockefeller Foundation to help the Siamese improve their medical skills. The two rooms haven’t changed since the 1920s, and have the dusty, cluttered look of an old laboratory: the skeletons of various Siriraj luminaries hang here, presumably donated to medical research rather than to act as a grim warning, as with the highwaymen of old. There are two unnamed corpses, a man and a woman, preserved in ethyl alcohol, and partially dissected to reveal the internal organs. There are Siamese twins preserved in jars. Embryos are to be found at every stage of growth. Someone has reconstructed the entire nervous system of the human body, and it hangs from a hook rather like a giant plant gone to seed. This museum is packed with exhibits, and there simply is not enough display room for everything; once I was startled to see a row of dusty skulls peering up at me from a shelf partly concealed behind a sliding panel. Reputedly the place is haunted, and I’m not surprised.

The most popular museum by far is however the Songkran Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum, more familiarly known as “Si Quey’s Place”. Here the focus is on crime. At the top of the stairs you will see a few skeletons hanging about, grinning knowingly at the visitors. To the rear of the stairwell are a number of cases displaying skulls whose late owners have copped it in violent circumstances, showing just what a machete can do (think boiled egg), and various bullet trajectories. There are severed limbs, one of them bearing a tattoo of an opium-smoking Chinaman. A blood-stained uniform belonging to a nurse murdered by a doctor is on display, as is an impressive collection of murder weapons. There is a preserved head, sliced vertically in half to show the path of a bullet through the brain. No description is given as to the circumstances in which the victim died (the museum is not big on words), but the preservation has been done so well that his hair looks freshly barbered and there is an expression of surprise on both halves of his face. Si Quey himself, however, is the main reason people come here. He was an immigrant from Southern China who arrived in Thailand in 1944, settling in Nakhon Pathom province. Making a living as a vendor, he seemed an ordinary enough member of the community until he abducted a little girl, suffocated her, then cut out her heart and ate it. Si Quey dumped her body near a temple, then fled to Rayong, where he found work as a gardener. This time he killed a small boy. When caught he said he ate the internal organs in the belief that it would promote longevity—a theory he managed to disprove by his own fate. He was hanged in 1958. Si Quey’s body was then preserved with paraffin wax, and it stands here in a glass case, black as ebony, and bowing forward with a slightly apologetic air. There is a newspaper photograph of him nearby, and in life he looks a scary enough figure with his big, sharp teeth. In death the teeth are still prominent, and the glass eyes are set at a wicked slant. He is enough to frighten the life out of any recalcitrant child, so if you are having trouble with your offspring I thoroughly recommend a visit.

The white elephant, symbol of Siam, as depicted outside the Grand Palace

BANGKOK

This series of walks takes us through the centre of Rattanakosin Island, inside the inner moat, and around the areas between the centre and the outer moats, before crossing the outer moat to the east into what was originally known as the Sea of Mud, and which formed a natural defence for the city. We explore the Dusit district, built for royalty when the original city became too cramped, and we take three separate walks through teeming Chinatown, reputed to be the oldest Chinatown anywhere. Our walks take us into the former European district, and then following the curve of the river we discover a hidden island covered in jungle and dotted with villages and temples. Our final walks take us through what was known as the Lotus Forest, to the fringe of modern-day Bangkok.