We spent today at a more leisurely pace exploring the poorer areas of Bangkok found along the city’s canals. In the morning, we travelled along the canals of Thonburi, seeing small timber houses built over the canals, experiencing the sights and smells of canal life. My students were amazed to see that despite the obvious filth of the water, only partly caused by its use for sewage disposal, local residents were using it for drinking, washing and bathing, and indeed one of Bangkok’s large ice works was using the canal water for its production. No further warnings were necessary from me as the study tour leader to avoid ice in drinks! This tour concluded at Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), a 79 metre high Khmer-style ceramic covered temple beside the Chao Phraya, the largest river in central Thailand.
A short drive took us to the Golden Mount, an artificial hill which was built as a combined temple and fortress, but which now serves as one of the few vantage points from which to get an overall view of the very flat city of Bangkok. After lunch, another canal trip showed us the canal settlements to the immediate north of Bangkok, including a visit to a “typical” Thai house.
By this stage, we were beginning to realise the truth of the Insight Guide to Thailand’s observations on Bangkok: “Some cities are easy: after only a few days you have a clear sense of their design, their personality, and you do not hesitate to set out boldly on explorations. Others are less accessible: they sprawl, they are confusing, and they seem to have not one but a dozen personalities, often contrary. Almost every visitor without exception would put Bangkok in this second category. For this metropolis of over five million appears at first glance to be a bewildering conglomeration of new and old, East and West, serenity and chaos, the exotic and the commonplace – all thrown together haphazardly into a gigantic urban stew following no apparent recipe… You can stand at one moment in a hushed temple courtyard, lulled by the rhythmic chanting of priests and the silvery tinkle of bells, and at the next, risk life and limb crossing a street down which hurtles some of the most lethal traffic in Asia.”
