Thonburi

Few tourists stay on the Thonburi side of the river, though many visit its canals and temples. It’s surprisingly convenient, with express boats and cross-river shuttles serving Bangamphu and Ratanakosin across on the other bank.

Bangkok really began across the river from Ratanakosin in the town of Thonburi. Devoid of grand ruins and isolated from central Bangkok, it’s hard to imagine Thonburi as a former capital of Thailand, but so it was for fifteen years, between the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 and the establishment of Bangkok in 1782. General Phraya Taksin chose to set up his capital here, strategically near the sea and near the sea and far from the marauding Burmese, but the story of his brief reign is a chronicle of battles that left little time and few resources to devote to the building of a city worthy of its predecessor. When General Chao Phraya displaced the by now demented Taksin to become Rama I, his first decision as founder of the Chakri dynasty was to move the capital to the more defensible site across the river. It wasn’t until 1932 that Thonburi was linked to its replacement by the Memorial Bridge or Saphan Phut, built to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the foundation of the Chakri dynasty and of Bangkok, and dedicated to Rama I (or Phra Buddha Yodfa, to give him his official title), whose bronze statue sits at the Bangkok approach. It proved to be such a crucial river-crossing that the bridge has since been supplemented by the adjacent twin-track Saphan Phra Pokklao. Thonburi retained its separate identity for another forty years until, in 1971; it officially became part of Bangkok.

As well as the imposing riverside structure of Wat Arun, Thonburi is home to the Royal Barge Museum, and there’s additional appeal in the traditional canal side neighborhoods that dominate the old quarters. Life on this side of the river still revolves around the khlongs: vendors of food and household goods paddle their boats along the canals that crisscross the residential areas, and canal side factories use them to transport their wares to the Chao Phraya River artery.

Getting to Thonburi is simply a matter of crossing the river – use one of the numerous bridges (Memorial/Phra Pokklao and Phra Pinklao are the most central), take a cross-river ferry, or hop on the express ferry, which makes several stops on the Thonburi bank. The southern Bus Terminal is in Thonburi, at the junction of Thanon Borom Ratchonni and the Nakhon Chaisri Highway, and all public and air-conditioned buses to southern destinations leave from here.

Royal Barge Museum

Since the Ayutthaya era, kings of Thailand have been conveyed along their country’s waterways in royal barges. For centuries these slender, exquisitely elegant, black-and-gold wooden vessels were used on all important royal outings, and even up until 1967 the current king used to process down the Chao Phraya River to Wat Arun in a flotilla of royal barges at least once a year, on the occasion of Kathin, the annual donation of robes by the laity to the temple at the end of the rainy season. But the 100-year-olf boats are becoming quite frail, so such an event is now rare: the last full-scale royal processions were floated in 1999, to mark the king’s 72^nd birthday, and in 2006 to celebrate his sixtieth year of on the throne. A royal barge procession along the Chao Phraya is a magnificent event; all the more royal barge procession along the Chao Phraya is a magnificent event, all the more spectacular because it happens so infrequently. Fifty or more barges fill the width of the river and stretch for almost 1km, drifting slowly to the measured beat of a drum and the hypnotic strains of ancient boating hymns, chanted by over two thousand oarsmen dressed in luscious brocades.

The eight beautifully crafted vessels at the heart of the ceremony are housed in the Royal Barge Museum on the north bank of Khlong Bangkok Noi (daily 9am-5pm; B30). Up to 50m long and intricately lacquered and gilded all over, they taper at the prow into imposing mythical figures after a design first use by the kings of Ayutthaya. Rama I had the boats copied and, when those fell into disrepair, Ram VI commissioned the exact reconstructions still in use today; the most important is Sri Suphanahongse, which bears the king and queen and is graced by a glittering five-meter-high prow representing the golden swan Hamsa, mount of the Hindu god Brahma. A display of miniaturized royal barges at the back of the museum re-creates the exact formation of a traditional procession.

The museum is a feature of most canal tours but is easily visited on your own. Just take the Chao Phraya express boat to Tha Phra Pinklao (N12) or, if coming from Banglamphu, take the cheaper, more frequent cross-river ferry (B3) from under Pinklao bridge, beside the Bangkok Information Centre, to Tha Phra Pinklao across the river, them walk up the road a hundred meters and take the first left down Soi Wat Dusitaram. If coming by bus form the Bangkok side (air-conditioned buses #503, #507, #509, #511 and #32 all cross the river here), get off at the first stop on the Thonburi side, which is right beside the mouth of Soi Wat Dusitaram. Sign of Soi Wat Dusitaram lead you through a jumble of walkways and stilt houses to the museum, about ten minutes’ walk away.

Wat Arun

Almost directly across the river from Wat Pho rises the enormous, five-spire prang of Wat Arun (daily 7am-5pm; B20), the Temple of Dawn, probably Bangkok’s most memorable landmark and familiar as the silhouette use in the TAT logo. It looks particularly impressive from the river as you head downstream from the Grand Palace towards the Oriental Hotel, but is ornate enough to be well worth stopping off at for a close look. All boat tours include half an hour here, but Wat Arun is also easily visited by yourself, although tour operators will try to persuade you otherwise: just take a B3 cross-river ferry from the pier adjacent to the Chao Phraya express-boat pier at Than Thien.

A wat has occupied this site since the Ayutthaya period, but only in 1768 did it become known as the Temple of Down – when General Phraya Taksin reputedly reached his new capital at the break of day. The temple served as his royal chapel and housed the recaptured Emerald Buddha for several years until the image was move to Wat Phra Kaeo in 1785. Despite losing its special status after the relocation, Wat Arun continued to be revered and its corncob prang was reconstructed and enlarged to its present height of 81m by Rama II and Rama III.

The prang that you see today is classic Ayutthayan style, built as a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods in Khmer cosmology. Climbing the two tiers of the square base that supports the central prang, you not only enjoy a good view of the river and beyond, but also get a chance to examine the tower’s distinctive decorations. Both this main prang and the four minor ones that encircle it are studded all over with bits of broken porcelain, ceramic shards and tiny bowls that have been fashioned into an amazing array of polychromatic flowers. The statues of mythical yaksha demons and half-bird, half-human kinnari that support the different levels are similarly decorated. The crockery probably cam from China, possibly from commercial shipments that were damaged at sea, but whatever its provenance, the overall effect is highly decorative and far more subtle that the dazzling glass mosaics that chad most wat buildings. On the first terrace, the mondops at each cardinal point contain statues of the Buddha at the most important stages of his life: at birth (north), in meditation (east), preaching his first sermon (south) and entering Nirvana (west). The second platform surrounds the base of the prang proper, whose closed entranceways are guarded by four statues of the Hindu god Indra on his three-headed elephant Erawan. In the niches of the smaller prangs stand statues of Phra Pai, the god of the wind, on horseback.