SURVIVING THE TEMPEST OF TIME

Wat Sra Pathum remains a cultural gem in Pathumwan despite 70 years of vast change

Even though historical knowledge concerns facts and events that are often long behind us, they continue to hold interest and can be enlightening. The history of food is just one example. When eating kaeng khio waan nuea (the popular, coconut creambased spicy beef curry), we may wonder where it came from and what it tasted like its original form. How has it changed over the years? Answers to these questions found in old recipes can help in appreciation of its combination of flavours and aromas.

But today, instead of focusing on the history of food, I’d like to take a look at the background of a certain locale in Bangkok, the Pathumwan neighbourhood, or at least part of it, as it was 70 or so years ago. Specifically, I’ll discuss the area where Siam Square is located now, before that shopping area appeared, the Ratchaprasong intersection, Pratunam and Khlong Saen Saep.

The reason I have chosen this area is that it has been so completely recast over the past seven decades. Only a single feature survives from the past, still with us today as a valuable part of the city’s heritage, even though people walking past it might not recognise it as the cultural gem that it is.

Seventy years ago, Rama I Road was narrow and short, extending only from Kasatsuek Bridge to the Ratchaprasong intersection. A trolley bus ran between the bridge and Pratunam on the right side of Rama I Road, while the grounds on both sides of the road were largely vacant apart from plants and a few houses, most made of wood and set around the Pratunam intersection.

Pathumwan police station, an old-fashioned wooden building, stood where Mahboonkrong is now, and the area now occupied by Siam Square was taken by private homes and a Mobil petrol station. Across the road, where Siam Paragon is now, were the grounds of the palace belonging to Queen Savang Vadhana, with the palace itself set far back, with a small moat in front facing the road and a dense grove of guava trees behind that. Adjoining the palace was Wat Sra Pathum.

There was a little canal called Khlong Orachon separating the palace grounds from the temple. Rama I Road and its trolley bus crossed it by way of the concrete Chalerm Phan Bridge that had been built during the reign of King Rama V.

The trolley route ran on the right side of Rama I Road until it reached the police station, where it crossed over to the left side. A little further on was Khlong Silom, which connected with Khlong Saen Saep, then known as Khlong Bang Kapi. Khlong Silom was quite long and wide, extending to Silom Road,

where it joined a smaller canal that emptied into the Chao Phraya River at Bang Rak.

Khlong Silom was traversed by a concrete bridge, after which came the Ratchaprasong intersection, where the trolley bus turned right and crossed to go on to Pratunam. The bridge it used was separate, not connected to the concrete one. It was made of steel and when the trolley bus turned onto it, children loved to watch because the sound of the wheels scraping on the rails made an exciting shrieking sound.

It passed the present location of today’s CentralWorld, which in those days was a simple gardening area that sold pots and tubs for growing plants. Behind that was a flooded swamp with an island in the middle that was densely covered with big trees. It was so quiet and forbidding that local people believed it was haunted by fierce ghosts. The entire vicinity was part of a palace owned by Prince Chudadhuj Dharadilok, a son of King Rama V.

The trolley bus ran along Ratchadamri Road until it reached the end of the line at the foot of Chalerm Loke Bridge, which was built high and steep to allow clearance for the big boats that had to pass under it. Inexperienced motorists were afraid to cross this bridge because if they didn’t rev the engine sufficiently, it would stall and the car would roll back.

Near the trolley terminal was Intharachai Carpentry School, a rival of Uthen Thawai Construction School, and there were frequent battles between students. Eventually Intharachai moved, so Uthen Thawai, which changed its name to Uthen Thawai Vocational School, had to find a new rival in Pathumwan Vocational School. Students at these two institutions continue to fight and kill each other to this day, with 70 years of accumulated experience.

The name “Pratunam” comes from a pair of steel bridges with locks that crossed Khlong Saen Saep about 100 metres apart. They could control the water level in the canal. If a boat transporting goods arrived, it had to wait while personnel at the lock raised it to allow the water to reach the right level.

Pratunam at that time was a broad concrete expanse where Chinese residents who lived along the canal made the salted and pickled cabbage condiment called tang chaai that is eaten with some noodle and khao tom dishes. Cabbage stems were chopped and washed in the canal, then salted and sun-dried on the concrete without anything placed underneath. Once dry, they were swept up and gathered in woven trays, then put into containers for sale.

There was a narrow walkway from Wat Sra Pathum to Rama I Road. The original residents were a community of Lao people who had been brought into Thailand as prisoners of war during the reign of King Rama III, when the Thai army invaded Vientiane. The idea was to bring in skilled artisans to work in Thailand. Knifesmiths were settled in Ayutthaya and weavers were taken to Uthai Thani, Sri Satchanalai and Sukhothai. The ones settled closest, at Pratunam, were a smaller group who had no special artisanal skills.

The most outstanding feature of the area, and one that still exists today, is Wat Sra Pathum, which was built during the reign of King Rama IV. Its style is that of the early Rattanakosin period. All the temple’s ornamentation uses a lotus flower motif. The bai sema, or temple marker, an important feature of the Buddha image hall, is also in the shape of a lotus flower. The mural painting depicts a Royal Barge procession in which all the traditional features and details are shown accurately. Even the temple wall is decorated with bas-relief images of lotus flowers that are beautifully done.

In front of the Buddha image hall are sandstone Naga heads carved in Khmer style that most likely came from Cambodia. The image itself, called the Phra Serm, was brought from Laos when Thailand invaded the country. The thinking was that to show its superior power Thailand had to seize and retain an object that was shown the highest reverence in the defeated nation, so the Buddha image itself became a victim of the conflict. Some of the Lao people brought to Thailand as prisoners of war were settled around Pratunam as slaves to maintain the temple.

After Wat Sra Pathum was built, King Rama IV invited a monk who had come from Isan and who was then at Wat Bowon Niwet to be its first abbot. It is natural that people from Isan will congregate around a temple where the abbot is a native of the region. Today the area behind the temple has a dense Isan population, while a wide selection of Isan food is available at stalls there.

Over the past 70 years, waves of change have overtaken the Pathumwan area, so completely transforming it that the only survivor of the earlier era is Wat Sra Pathum. Anyone interested in traditional Thai culture that has managed to sustain itself amid the modern cityscape at its most hectic would do well to visit the temple for a quiet hour or two.