Bangkok and the Rivers of Thailand on Board the Mekhala

The Chao Phraya is a symbol of love, for this kingdom which is our pride and joy, born in the rejoicing hearts of its people, a song can be heard wherever a Thai heart beats. This simple verse composed by the poet Narawat Phongphaiboon poignantly expresses the importance of the Chao Phraya River to the Thai people. Descending from its source in the northern mountains, the Chao Phraya irrigates over 250 miles of the country's broad central plains before flowing into the Gulf of Siam. A natural artery around which the lives of millions of Thais are still organized even today, the Chao Phraya has played an essential role in the country's history since the middle of the 14th century. A means of invasion for the powerful Burmese sovereigns, a means of conquest for the kings of Siam, the Chao Phraya's strategic role is confirmed by the successive presence on its banks of three capital cities. First Ayutthaya from 1350 to 1767 when it was destroyed by the Burmese, then Tamburi and finally Bangkok, Thailand's present capital. Bangkok has become a modern metropolis with more than five million inhabitants. On the banks of the Chao Phraya, luxurious international hotels have replaced the simple wooden houses that occupied the site when the city was founded in 1782. Named the City of Angels by the Thais, Bangkok and the other riverside towns have nonetheless managed to preserve their charm. Sailing along the waters of the delta and the maze of canals that infiltrate the town's center is to discover all the charm, exotism and mysteries of the ancient kingdom of Siam. As well as being a principal artery of communication, the Chao Phraya is also a sacred river. To mark the end of the Buddhist fasting period, the sovereigns celebrated the Kathin, that is the offering of new robes to the monks. This ceremony, which for centuries gave rise to a majestic procession of the royal barges between the palace and the monasteries, now only takes place on very rare occasions. Propelled by 50 uniformed oarsmen with 14 other members of the crew holding the royal emblems, the royal barge, the centerpiece of the procession, was built in 1911 by King Rama VI from a single 130-foot-long teak tree trunk. Respecting the ancient ritual, the oarsmen row in synchronized movement to the chanting while the drums beat the rhythm. Certain processions between the royal palace and Wat Arun, the temple of the Dan, were over half a mile long and comprised more than 50 barges accompanying the royal barge, whose prow is in the shape of the golden hansa, the mythical bird that served as a mount for the god Brahma. After witnessing such a spectacular sight, we can well understand the enthusiastic accounts of the first French visitors in the 18th century to Ayutthaya, the former capital of Siam. Leaving Bangkok, we head in the direction of Nakhon Pathom, situated 38 miles to the west of the Chao Phraya delta. The festivities commemorating the king's birthday have just ended. The strings of lights that adorn the Nakhon Pathom chedi for the occasion are now being taken down. The Nakhon Pathom chedi is 406 feet high and is the tallest in the world. With its slender tower-like form symbolizing the ascension to the state of nirvana, the Thai chedi, like its model the Indian stupa, reproduces the eight sepulchres where Buddha's ashes were enshrined. Nakhon, meaning first, and Pathom, meaning town, Nakhon Pathom is said to be the oldest city in Thailand and the one which first welcomed Buddhism in the early centuries of our present era. In the 13th century, when Buddhism separates into two major forms, Thailand, like Burma, Laos and Ceylon, remains faithful to the older, original form of Buddhism named Theravada. Despite having long ago attained the status of state religion, Buddhism is imprinted with tolerance. This explains the frequent cohabitation inside the very temples, even of Brahamist rites reflecting the Khmer influence and certain pagan practices of Chinese origin such as shaking a lucky taper out of a wooden box. The Buddhist temple is a place open to everyone. At the northern entrance to the Nakhon Pathom chedi stands a Buddhist statue that is visited by thousands of the faithful. For a Thai, a visit to the temple is accompanied by an offering, incense sticks, which symbolizes the perfumes of life, lotus buds, which evoke the ephemeral nature of beauty, or candles, which represent the fragility of existence. Receiving blessings with purifying water from the banzas, offering lotus flowers or rubbing gold leaf on the Buddhist statues, all these practices, far from being anecdotal, reflect the deep attachment of the Thais to their religion. We leave Nakhon Pathom and head towards Danuan Saduak, situated a little farther west in the Chao Phraya Delta. We are now in the province of Ratchaburi, about 70 miles from the capital. In this part of the delta the river and the klongs, or canals, often constitute the sole means of communication between the villages. The rows of wooden houses on stilts on the banks of the klong bear witness to this, as it is here where everything takes place, social life as well as commerce. This explains the natural development of the floating markets, which provide the local inhabitants with an opportunity to sell their home-grown products. I live at Bang Mon Thee. I get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and I prepare my barge. Then I leave home around 6 o'clock. I set off along the canal and sell my produce as I go. I arrive at the market at 7.30. All the fruit I sell is from my own garden. Today at the floating market I'm going to sell guava fruit, bananas, taros and tomatoes. It's Sunday. There are many people about, a lot of tourists. It's a good day for business. amongst the countless small boats that have converged in the narrow klong of Dang Nuan Saduak, which gives its name to the floating market. In an amazing choreography of blue-tinted parasols, the barges pass each other, sometimes brushing sides but never colliding. The lively chaos that seems to reign here is deceptive. The movements are finely synchronized and the small boats, which seem to sag under the weight of their colorful cargoes of fruit and vegetables, glide with graceful ease along the surface of the water. An oasis in the middle of the delta, the Dang Nuan Saduak floating market represents a way of life that is today threatened by the nearby hustle and bustle of Bangkok and its incessant flow of tourists. Aboard a Ong Giao, a long-tail boat, we head back towards Bangkok. Leaving the Chau Phraya, we advance along one of the innumerable klongs that water the city center. On the banks of the klong, discreetly concealed behind a screen of vegetation, is a magnificent Thai-style teakwood house. Elegant decoration, comfortable amenities, the privileged guests of this sumptuous guesthouse are here for a very special reason. They're here to discover the secrets of Thai cuisine. The lesson begins with a description of the spices. Introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, spices are used in great quantities in Thai cooking. Citronella, coriander, tamarind, ginger, cardamom, as well as a countless variety of peppers. The spices are chosen not only for their flavor, but also for their color. Thai cooking, while being one of the tastiest in the world, is also one of the most visually attractive. The students are eager to learn. They ask questions and conscientiously note down the ingredients of the recipe. On today's program, Thai noodles. They form part of the composition of an infinite variety of recipes, accompanying fish balls, soups like the famous tom yum that is traditionally served at the end of a meal, or even, like here, with pork. Noodles form one of the basic ingredients of Thai cooking. After the cooking comes the tasting, the most enjoyable part of the course for the attentive students. First of all, we didn't plan to teach cooking before. We make homestay bed and breakfast. And then, when the people who stay with us, I serve them the homestyle cooking, they love it. They just ask me, what is it? Why the flavor like this? Why the color like this? I just bring them to my kitchen like this and show them the ingredients, and then they say they want to know how to cook. Why not? You stay here already. And after that, I start teaching cooking. That's it. Are they good people? Huh? Are we good students? Ah! If you say yes, we'll give you a beer. We'll pepper if you say yes. We set off once more along the River of the Kings, the Chao Phraya, leaving behind us Bangkok and the hustle and bustle of the noisy long-tail boats. We head north towards Ayutthaya, aboard the calm and indolent Mekhala, a former rice barge now converted into a passenger cruise boat. At the helm of the Mekhala, Captain Chanka observes the numerous boats plying to and fro along the river. Apart from boats like the one we're on, the Mekhala, there are many different kinds of boats on this river. For example, the Krachang, which are the small vendor boats that are used to transport all sorts of produce for sale. There are really floating grocery stores. And then there are the Hang Yau, the long-tail boats. There are short boats, express boats, taxi boats. They're all different. As I say, there are really all kinds of boats on this river. The Mekhala leaves the outer suburbs of Bangkok. A new and striking decor comes slowly into Chedi, the gentle light of dusk envelopes our vessel. The silence heralding nightfall descends over the banks and the ghostly shadows of the barges. As the sun begins to set, the surface of the sacred river shimmers in its golden reflection. My manager teach to me. You see, I'm the master, the bus master of this boat, and I must do for everything inside this one, and to control for the crew, and cooking for the passengers. So you can see for this kitchen in this boat, it's an open kitchen because of Thai cooking. When we cooking for Thai food, it have a strong smell, and so the wind take the smell go out from the kitchen. I'm cooking for the Chinese blue prawn soup Thai style with spicy, and the green curry with chicken, fried beef with oyster sauce, and so fried pork with vegetable and for Thai dessert. I will carving for the fruit for you also. Guided by the lights twinkling in the night, the Mekala sails towards the Waikai-Tia temple. At daybreak, when the river starts coming to life again, the monks here at Waikai-Tia have already been up for a long time. In the Buddhist tradition, all the able-bodied monks must leave the monastery two hours before dawn and go into nearby villages to receive their daily offering of food from the faithful. This practice, however, isn't assimilated to begging. On the contrary, the monks provide the donators with an opportunity to earn spiritual merit. The passengers of a barge that arrived in the night pay a visit to the monastery. In accordance with Buddhist custom, they're going to make food offerings to the monks. The captain of the Mekala takes advantage of this stopover to visit a colleague who is also a monk. On board, a dozen or so tourists are heading back down the Chao Phraya to Bangkok. What I'd really like to show the people, the tourists, the visitors who come to Thailand, is the way of life of the Thai people and the beauty of the natural landscape here. It's the people who are important, the Thai people. As the other barge sets off towards Bangkok, the captain of the Mekala pays a visit to the monastery in his turn to make the traditional offering. The monks have to take their one meal of the day before eleven o'clock in the morning. This rule forms part of the 227 others that the monks must abide by. One of these consists in relinquishing all personal belongings, with the exception of nine objects, which are three robes, a belt, a razor, a sewing needle, a water bowl, an alms bowl, and a fan. The Mekala leaves Wat Kai Tia in its turn and continues its route northwards in the direction of Bang Paim. I grew up on the river. My parents had a boat. When they died, I continued working on the boat and we started transporting rice. Then my family and I bought another motorboat. Finally we stopped our activity and sold all the boats. Since then, I've been piloting passenger boats. If I could be the owner of a boat again one day, I'd like to have a taxi boat, a tugboat like that one there, because then you can have your family with you. You can live and work together, and more than anything, you're independent. The Mekala approaches Bang Paim. It's here, on the bank of the Chao Phraya River, that King Rasat Thong built his summer palace in the 17th century. Left in a state of abandon for a long time, Bang Paim was first restored by Rama IV in the middle of the 19th century. But it's Rama V who will revive the former glory of this summer retreat by constructing a series of incredible palaces. The Mekala negotiates for the last time the branches of the Chao Phraya. Bang Paim marks the end of our cruise, but our journey is far from over. Italian Renaissance-style palace, or typical Thai-style pavilion, the buildings erected by Rama V are an amazing display of architectural eclecticism. The mixture of styles undoubtedly betrays the dilemma of a king, permanently torn between the desire to preserve the independence of his kingdom from the colonialist designs of France and England, and that of wanting to modernize his country at all costs. Perhaps the sole exception in this Baroque ensemble is the Chinese-style pavilion that the sovereign occupied during his summer retreat in Bang Paim. Our long-tail boat sails back up the Chao Phraya towards Ayutthaya, the former capital of the kingdom of Siam. After 45 minutes of frenzied sailing, the boat finally slows down. At a bend in the river, we catch our first glimpse of the Ayutthaya Chedi. When Rama Thibode I landed here in 1350, he realized the strategic importance of a site where three rivers converge. He decides to establish the capital of his kingdom here. After digging a canal between the Passak and Chao Phraya rivers, the site becomes an island. Ayutthaya is born. Considered in the 16th century to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Ayutthaya has a population of around one million inhabitants, outnumbering both London and Paris at that time. With its prong, a tower-like shrine, symbolizing Mount Meru, the axis of the world according to Hindu cosmology, the Wat Chai Wathanara is a model of the Angkor temple. The eight small chedi complete the temple complex, housing rows of headless Buddhas. In the center of the island, the Phrasi Samphit temple, with its three intact chedi containing the ashes of three Ayutthaya sovereigns, evokes for us the city's past splendor, as described by the Abhidishwasi who stayed here in 1741. I paused frequently to admire this strong, great city, seated upon an island round which flowered a river three times the width of the Seine. There rode ships from France, England, Holland, China and Japan, while innumerable boats and gilded barges rode by sixty men plied to and fro. The streets are alleys of running water, the horizon is tall trees, above which are visible the sparkling towers and pyramids of the pagodas. I have never seen a lovelier sight. Laid to waste by the Burmese in 1767, Ayutthaya's days of glory are at an end. Those of Bangkok are about to begin. After the destruction of Ayutthaya, the new Chakri sovereigns decided to baptize their dynasty, the Rama, after the godlike hero of the Ramakien, in order to declare its legitimacy gained by the force of arms. The Ramakien, the Thai version of the Indian epic Ramayana, represents the magnum opus of Thai literature. Through the adventures of its fantastic characters, it relates the battle between good and evil. Passed down by oral tradition from generation to generation, these stories are inscribed like comic strips on the walls of all Thailand's temples, and in particular, those of Bangkok. Fierce mythological figures straight out of the Ramakien guard the entrance to the Wat Phra Kio temple. Using as its model the royal temple of Ayutthaya, the Wat Phra Kio was built in 1782 by Rama I as a shrine for the mysterious Emerald Buddha. This statue, carved out of a block of jade, is the most sacred object in Thailand. Since the 15th century, it's believed to have a direct beneficent influence on the well-being of the nation. During his conquest of Vientiane in 1778, General Chakri takes possession of the statue, which had been in Laos for around 250 years. He houses the Emerald Buddha in a magnificent shrine guarded over by Garuda, the traditional mount of the god Vishnu. Discovering the Wat Phra Kio is to enter a dazzling world of multicolored tiles and gilded spires, peopled with strange deities such as the kinari, the female bird humans, taken from the Hindu or Buddhist mythology. The influence of Khmer art, the model of the Angkor temple, situated in the Wat Phra Kio temple complex, reminds us that Cambodia was once a vassal state of Siam. Following the example of Ayutthaya, Rama I decides to dig a canal in one of the bends of the Chao Phraya river. On this newly created island he builds the temple of the Emerald Buddha and his royal palace. The neoclassical style buildings date from the end of the 19th century and reflect once again the western influence on the sovereigns of this time. The seat of both civil and religious power, the royal palace was a real city within a city. Once outside the historical zone, we discover a completely different aspect of Bangkok, its street life. With its infinite variety of flowers and necklace offerings, Tevet Market offers everything, including the famous orchids, of which Thailand boasts more than 35,000 different species, wild or cultivated. In the expression of their taste for decoration and innate sense of refinement, the imagination of the Thais knows no bounds. In the crowded aisles of the covered markets, the vendors not only sell natural flowers but create artificial ones, like here, from banana tree trunks. After experiencing a short period of recession in the late 1990s, Bangkok continues its economic development with the construction of glass tower blocks, mammoth shopping centers and international hotels. But despite this expansion and modernization, the Buddhist tradition is still omnipresent in the lives of the Thais. Each new building is placed under the protection of the deities, like this Vishnu, mounted on Garuda. The most humble Thai home and the most sophisticated modern building, each has at its entrance a little spirit house or altar, which is the object of devout worship. Hospitality, friendliness, refinement, far from being empty words aimed at luring the tourist, these are real qualities of the Thai people and are expressed through ancient traditions such as the sculpting of exotic fruit. The Wat Pho is the largest and oldest temple monastery in Bangkok. Converted by Rama III into an open education center for both monks and lay people, various disciplines were taught here, with prime of place given to Thai traditional medicine and the art of massage. There are knowledge of Thai traditional medicine in Wat Pho. We collect during build Bangkok. And here we have an encampment in the stone about the Thai massage and the point of the massage in Wat Pho. So in last 40 years, the abbot of Wat Pho, they established a school of massage here. For the Thai medicine, we have to teach the whole body. The human being, they are composed of four parts of element. First water element, second is solid element, and the second wind element, and the fourth is the fire element. If you have something imbalanced, you will get sickness. So if you have a massage, you stimulate the wind element to blow out, blow throughout the body to keep your body fresh up and stronger and have an energizer. The Thai people use the massage to cure the sickness. Since the ancient time, up to now, the painting about the massage in Wat Pho, they are the major principle of the massage education. So we select some part of this massage painting, come to rearrange to be a massage line. And then we come to teach our students. Up to now, we have more than 30,000 student success in the massage learning course. About half of them are working throughout the world. With their tall brimmed hats, symbolizing the terrifying Europeans, these gigantic stone statues scattered throughout Wat Pho were used as ballast on rice ships returning empty from China. But above all, the Wat Pho is famous for its monumental statue of the reclining Buddha. This 150 foot long gilded statue represents Buddha entering the state of nirvana. The mother of pearl ornaments on the soles of its feet represent the 108 attributes that differentiate a Buddha from common mortals. The walls of the bot, the main shrine of the temple, are paneled with bas-relief marble carvings believed to have come from Ayutthaya and representing key scenes from the Ramayana. The gentle poetic features express the state of grace of the artist. What impression of Bangkok and Thailand will we take away with us? That of the sprawling, noisy city of several million inhabitants? Or that of the temples and the peaceful, simple life on the banks of the Chao Phraya River? The streets of Bangkok, aptly named the City of Angels, are full of surprises and remind us of the essential role spirituality and Buddhism play in the daily lives of the Thai people. The most humble temple receives daily offerings from the faithful. The monks travel from village to village, receiving as their natural due donations of food from the inhabitants. Indeed, each Thai has the spiritual duty at one time in his life to retreat to a monastery for several weeks or even months. For all these reasons, Thailand will no doubt always remain the eternal Land of Smiles.