WEEKEND DRIVE: BANG KHONTHI
The past in its pocket
By VIPASAI NIYAMABHASPECIAL TO THE NATIONSamut Songkhram
Bang Khonthi is all green, with wooden houses lining the natural waterways.
Samut Songkram's Bang Khonthi district no longer surges with canal trade, but it remembers everything
We zigzag deep into the orchards of Samut Songkhram and finally reach the district called Bang Khonthi. I think the name is interesting enough all by itself: It's new to the ears, and the place is pleasant to the eyes as well.
It's all green, with wooden houses lining the natural waterways. Its tranquillity belies its closeness to busy Amphawa.
People in Bang Khonthi seem to be enjoying life, judging by their beautiful houses, the abundant fruit in the orchards, the good roads and temples rising every 100 metres.
This must be the dream-come-true rural life, and for visitors it's an effortless matter to find places to sample tasty palm-sugar juice, relax in a canal-side terrace house and pick pomelos and bananas from the trees.
Joining the numerous temples is the Nativity of Our Lady Cathedral, an outstanding sight by the Mae Klong River.
French missionaries led by Father Paulo Sulmon started building the stunning, Gothic cathedral in 1860 and finished it six years later. The walls are fired clay bricks coated with sugarcane molasses and lime.
It's enfolded in the wings of a big school, and the noise of the kids can be deafening during lunch breaks.
You can contact the school officer for the key to the cathedral, the better to admire its colourful stained-glass windows and other elegant decor.
You can see the spire from the old market in Bang Nok Kwaek subdistrict, which was featured on a TV show not long ago. The publicity made the crab-noodle stall there famous, but it's not as good as they claimed on television.
Instead, wend your way along the alleyway to the riverside shophouses.
The market sits right where the celebrated Damnoen Saduak Canal meets the Mae Klong. The merchants used to paddle in at dawn with fresh orchard produce, so it was a real floating market before they started building roads.
Walking though, you can reminisce amid the marvellous old architecture, some of the houses renovated and some left abandoned for years.
Being on TV got the locals thinking about the market's future. They've made plans for its revival in the hopes of bringing in tourists.
The name Bang Nok Kwaek is intriguing. The word bang refers to a settlement on a waterway. Nok kwaek is a black-crowned night heron. So this is where the fish-eating herons flocked.
You're not going to find the bird here these days, of course.
A more recent association for Bang Nok Kwaek is as a mafia hangout. The term chao por Bang Nok Kwaek suggests a tough guy, fierce and influential.
In days hopefully past, this was the man who controlled the boat traffic between Nakhon Sawan and Bangkok. The most powerful chao por Bang Nok Kwaek of them all was tossed in prison by Prime Minister Field Marshal Sarit Dhanarajata back in the '50s.
Driving around the area with my parents, they recall this character and wonder where he lived.
"He must have lived somewhere around here," Dad says as we enter Wat Charoen Sukharam.
The large royal temple is the site of the Bang Nok Kwaek watergate that marked the end of the manmade segment of the Damnoen Saduak Canal. Surely the mafia had to have had a solid grip on the gateway.
This temple pier is a popular spot to feed the fish - thousands of fat silver barts loiter there all day long.
Meanwhile people seek merit by buying buckets of small fish and releasing them into the canal.
"You should buy eight eels for good fortune, or 15 white catfish to make you happier," says the livefish vendor, who also provides a piece of paper bearing scripture to recite while you unload your bucket.
Whatever you've just prayed for, it appears to have had an inauspicious effect on the newly freed fish, which immediately become lunch for the big barts.
Such is life, and life suggests lunch.
Walk straight to the pier, where you can enjoy dishes ranging from kuay tiew to kuay jap and khanom jeen and watch the venerable wood cargo barges amble past.
After dessert, it's on to the Bang Noi Canal and another old market with a bit more sophistication. Wonderful photographs of the local life hang on the rustic walls, a recent addition courtesy of the younger generation.
Monrak Maeklong magazine and the Bang Noi Khoi Rak coffeeshop and gallery mounted the pictures to add some style and remind the citizens of the beauty of their way of life.
"The magazine strives to portray the rural way of life," says Pattaraporn Apichit, the photo exhibition's curator.
"Our guest photographers don't come here just to take beautiful shots. It's more important for us to sit down with the people and learn from them. That's why every photo has a story to tell."
The small Tang Seum Ha Museum displays pottery and other household objects collected from the riverbed. All around, even as 7Eleven and Tesco Lotus lure shoppers toward the town centre, little shops cling tenaciously to times gone by.
Get there from here
Bang Khonthi district is about 90 kilometres south of Bangkok, halfway to Hua Hin. Take the southbound expressway and exit at Rama II Road.
Follow Highway 35 and turn left on Highway 325 to downtown Samut Songkram. Bang Khonthi is about 15km further on.
The landmarks and riverside marketplaces are on 6006 Road, running north and south along the canal
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