Bangkok rediscovers the magic of its legendary river

[reader]

From National Geographic / MSN

The Bhumibhol suspension bridge spans Bangkok, Thailand’s Chao Phraya River. The historic neighborhoods on its banks are experiencing a creative and commercial renaissance.  © Photograph by Tassaphon Vongkittipong, Getty Images

Rachna Sachasinh

Bangkok’s Chao Phraya flows in exaggerated loops through historic neighborhoods, past Buddhist temples, gilded palaces, and humble teak bungalows teetering on the water’s edge.

The river floats by the curled rooflines of Chinese shrines, the spires of Christian churches and mosque minarets, and shophouses that were—and still are—home to immigrant families from China, India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. They settled along its banks as early as the 19th century to trade in teak, cloth, gems, and spices.

For most people, the river’s twists and turns connect the modern Thai capital with its historical contours. For me and my immigrant family, the Chao Phraya is a link to the country I call home. Amid its riverside communities are smaller khaek neighborhoods, immigrant enclaves which get their name from the Thai word for guest or visitor. Khaek also refers to Thai Indians. That’s me. Born in a riverside neighborhood to Sikh Indian parents in 1969, I grew up in Bangkok and now live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, about 450 miles north.

Although my family left its banks in the 1970s, the river keeps luring me back. Each time I’m in Bangkok, I hop a ferry to the old amulet market at Maharaj Pier and slurp lod chong Singapore (bubble noodles in sweet coconut milk) in Ratchawong, where my family lived.

These days the riverside neighborhoods are a little timeworn, but my old stomping grounds are now being rediscovered and revived by artists and entrepreneurs. And, the Chao Phraya, always central to my story, is once again the center of Bangkok.

Bangkok—a portmanteau of ban or bang (village) and makok (plum), the settlement’s former name—became Siam’s new capital in 1782, when King Rama I laid the foundation for the Grand Palace in a wide westward bend in the river. Modeled loosely on Ayutthaya, the kingdom’s former seat 67 miles upstream, the palace is located on a section of a wide moat that feeds into a network of canals or klongs. This earned Bangkok the nickname, “the Venice of the East.”

At the Museum Siam, near the palace, antique maps and sepia-tinged daguerreotypes show how the new capital’s riverside evolved. In the late 19th century, King Rama V courted international trade and commissioned Neoclassical palaces and residences along the water, including the circa-1888 Old Customs House. The striking Palladian pile, once the first stop for ships entering Bangkok, is being redeveloped into a boutique hotel.

Charoen Krung Road—the city’s first paved street, running parallel to the river—was added in 1867. French, Portuguese, and Chinese sailors who’d been trading with Siam since the 16th century were joined by British, Indian, and Middle Eastern merchants, who settled in communities south of the Grand Palace between the water and Charoen Krung Road. 

By the time my grandfather, Hakim Singh Sachdev, a Sikh Indian from Punjab, sailed up the Chao Phraya in the 1920s, the river port city was in full swing. Chinese junks, Siamese barges, and European ships ran rice, spices, and teak up and down the river. On its banks, Bohra Muslims trafficked in glass and block-printed textiles and Indians traded cotton fabrics milled in England. Narrow wooden sampans held floating markets that plied the canals.

While most Indian immigrants settled in Phahurat, or “Little India,” my grandfather put down roots in neighboring Ratchawong. There, in a bustling zone of warehouses and tradespeople from around the world, he built a thriving textile business in a shophouse a hundred yards from Ratchawong Pier.

Despite Thailand’s famously warm and welcoming nature, my grandfather and his fellow immigrants were often called khaek or farang (European foreigners), underscoring their outsider status. My grandfather’s generation didn’t seem to notice.

Coming of age in the 1960s, my father shirked his conservative Sikh upbringing and the khaek sobriquet. He embraced the laidback Thai temperament, hobnobbing with local politicos and foreign correspondents at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel’s Bamboo Bar and changing his Punjabi name—Sinderpal Singh Sachdev—to the Thai Surin Sachasinh.

Continues at

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/bangkok-rediscovers-the-magic-of-its-legendary-river/ar-AAUWzyQ

 

 

[Lonnie]

Just beautiful, thanks.

 

[NIrishGuy]

"Bangkok—a portmanteau of ban or bang (village) and makok (plum), the settlement’s former name"

 

Well you learn something new every day ( or at least I did)  - I don't know how after all these years I DIDN"T know that Bangkok actually meant Plum Village ( or some variation of that).

Interesting post, thanks for posting Reader.

[thaiophilus]

Ban (บ้าน) and bang (บาง)  are distinct words in Thai: different tone, different final consonant.

Ban means house or village; bang is a waterway or a locality along a waterway. As you might expect, the one in Bangkok (บางกอก) is the latter and still exists in the names of the districts Bangkok Yai and Bangkok Noi in Thonburi.