the patriarch of Ban Lao, Jarin Glinbuppha. Jarin passed away a few years ago, and his daughter Nitaya is now head of the community. She produced her father’s guestbook, which I had signed at the time, and which is full of the signatures of musicians, academics, television producers, writers, and dealers in musical instruments. Prominent is the signature of former prime minister Chuan Leekpai, who had made his own way to Ban Lao and to Jarin’s workshop. Jarin had drawn a frame in biro around the entry.
A traditional Thai musical ensemble will often use a khlui flute, made from a species of bamboo known as mai mak. Because of the quality and reputation of the khlui made at Ban Lao, the flutes find a ready market. Most of them are delivered to Duriyaban, a music store on Tanao Road, on the other side of the river. The bamboo comes from Taipikul Putthabat, a village in the province of Saraburi, about a hundred kilometres northeast of Bangkok. This is limestone country, and the villagers cut the bamboo from the mountain behind Wat Phra Phutthabat, the stands growing on the mountain ledges providing exceptionally strong wood. First it is cut to length then left to dry in the sun, where it takes from fifteen to twenty days for the wood to dry completely, the villagers turning the bamboo over continuously to ensure consistent drying, the colour turning from green to a light yellow. The dried wood is cut according to the tone required, a short one producing a high tone and a long one a low tone. The surface is polished using ground brick wrapped in coconut husk, and holes drilled based on precise dimensions and spacing according to a formula passed down through the generations. Bees’ wax is poured into the flute and a heated rod inserted to melt the wax, leaving a smooth coating on the uneven inner surface and ensuring a consistency of sound. The more elaborate flutes are covered in rich markings made by dribbling liquid lead, which is heated in a charcoal-fired kiln. Ban Lao makes flutes from other materials too, and foreign buyers often order to specification. Nitaya showed me some ebony instruments tipped with ivory. Others are made from hardwoods brought out of the northern forests, and from ceramics. The most popular ones now, however, are made from pvc, and retail for about 50 baht. These sell in the mass market, being especially popular in schools. Ban Lao occupies two parallel alleys, and only about half a dozen families are making the flutes now. I couldn’t resist buying a bamboo flute, along with a pvc model as a comparison, but as my musicals skills do not extend beyond switching on a radio, they live upon my bookcase as souvenirs.
WALK 3
BANGKOK NOI
Money Town
This walk takes us through the earliest part of the Thonburi settlement, when it was a customs port and garrison town for the capital of Ayutthaya, further upriver.
Duration: 4 hours
The earliest maps of Thonburi, dating from the latter half of the seventeenth century, show a very modest sized township. King Narai’s Wichaiprasit Fort, built in the 1660s and expanded by the French under the naval officer Chevalier de Forbin, sits formidably at the mouth of Klong Bangkok Yai, a watchful presence for ships heading upriver to Ayutthaya. With the fort at its southeast corner, a rectangle of fortifications spreads back almost as far as Klong Bangkok Noi, and outside of this rectangle the land is marked as being agricultural. On the east bank of the river, the Bangkok side, the corresponding fort built by the French is an enormous star-shape, and outside of this, again, the land is marked as farms and orchards. Clearly, Money Town had been essentially for officialdom and the military, while the community that depended upon it had lived largely outside the walls, on the river and alongside the canals, for this was the era when ordinary folk dwelled upon the water rather than on the usually marshy land. When King Taksin established Thonburi as his capital he took the original fortified area and strengthened it by having a canal dug as a moat, the southern end connecting to Klong Bangkok Yai next to Wat Molilokkayaram, and the waterway passing behind Wat Arun, running parallel to the river until it reached Klong Bangkok Noi, at Wat Amarin. These three temples had all existed since the Ayutthaya era, with no one really knowing when they were founded, and indeed at this period they were all known by different names to those of today. Taksin made this area his royal court, building his palace directly next to Wichaiprasit Fort, with Wat Arun as his immediate neighbour on the other side. As a protection from marauders, he had the safest place in the kingdom.
Taksin’s moat still exists and it is possible to follow its course all the way across the heart of Thonburi, a journey that can be accomplished on foot within an hour and which will pass some of the old city’s most historic sites, skirting the naval dockyards before the canal finally runs to ground just before reaching Klong Bangkok Noi, the waterway having been filled in at this point by Rama V for the building of Thonburi Railway Station. Wichaiprasit Fort, however, is visible only from the Chao Phraya River, and the landward approach will reveal only a massive gate guarded by what must be some of the friendliest-looking sentries in the business. The fort is the home of the Royal Thai Navy, which flies the flag of its commander-in-chief here and fires offsalvos from its cannon on state occasions. Taksin’s palace has been absorbed into the fort compound and is similarly off-limits except to the occasional specialist tour that has to be invited in. These invitations are very, very hard to get if you are a non-Thai. (They won’t even let me in, although possibly they can’t be faulted on that.) Now known as Wang Derm, or Former Palace, it was occupied after Taksin’s time by a succession of princes. Three sons of Rama II were born here, two of who would become king as Rama III and Rama IV, while the third would become Second King Pinklao. When the last royal resident, Prince Chakrapadibhongse died in 1900, Rama V granted ownership of the palace to the Royal Thai Navy, which manages it jointly with the Phra Racha Wang Derm Restoration Foundation. There are some architectural gems in here. Taksin had built the Throne Hall in Chinese style, and the Navy uses it as a reception hall and a conference centre. There is a large Chinese bell at the Throne Hall, the clapper being in the form of a dragon with a crystal ball in its mouth, while the bell stand is Thai in style, the capital of its pillar carved in the shape of a lotus flower and a naga that twists its body around the pillar. Two Chinese-style mansions are located close to the eastern gate of the palace, the inner one having been Taksin’s personal quarters and which is now used as Navy offices. A shrine to King Taksin is here, built late in the nineteenth century in a blending of Thai and Western styles, while nearby is a small modern shrine housing—curiously—whale bones that were found beneath the Taksin shrine when renovations were being undertaken.
The Navy in fact has a substantial frontage at Thonburi from the Bangkok Yai to the Bangkok Noi canals, denoting the importance that this stretch of water had for shipbuilding and military use from the Taksin era onwards. In the early years of the Ayutthaya period river barges manned by teams of rowers had been the chief element of Siamese shipping, as the capital was not a seaport and rivers and canals formed the main transportation highways. When wars erupted, the barges were fitted with cannons for battle. In 1608 the style began to change when King Ekatosarot requested assistance from the Dutch to send shipbuilders to build and equip a number of twoor three-mast brigs. By the latter half of the century the Siamese shipbuilding industry was flourishing, helped by the easy availability of timber, and both Western-style ships and Chinese junks were being built, along with oar-driven barges. Siam therefore had a good capability for building ships, and the vessels that Taksin constructed in the dockyards at Chantaburi in a very short period of time to fight the Burmese invader shows the degree of expertise there must have been. He was able, late in 1767, to move 5,000 men on a fleet of commandeered and new vessels along the Gulf coast, stopping on the way to quell unrest at Chonburi and then sailing up the Chao Phraya to Thonburi, which he took by force, executing the governor, Chao Thong-in, who had been placed in command by the Burmese. The fleet then travelled on to Ayutthaya and Taksin’s army attacked the Burmese at Pho Sam Ton, driving them back across the border. Thus the naval fleet played an important role in regaining Siam’s independence. In 1769, with Taksin now king and attempting to win back errant provinces, he led a fleet of 10,000 men with another 10,000 oarsmen to Nakhon Si Thammarat, in the south, where the governor had been unwilling to comply. The fleet passed through the mouth of the Samut Songkhram River, and was almost destroyed
