WHERE RUNS THE RIVER
opened Thailand to international trade in the mid-19th century, and the Chao Phraya became a superhighway of commerce. You still see scores of historic riverside structures that attest to the prosperity of the era, including the original wing of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, which first opened in 1887, and the old Customs House, a moldering Palladian pile that has been shuttered for decades. And the city’s first paved road, Charoenkrung, was built in the 1860s along a route that followed the sinuous curve of the river from the Grand Palace south to the European enclave of Bangrak.
But with the economic boom that followed World War II, Bangkok spread east away from the water, first to Silom and Siam, then to Sathorn and Sukhumvit. Younger generations moved to newer suburbs. By the time I first visited the city in the early 1990s, grand riverside hotels like the Oriental and the Shangri-La were being supplanted by flashier properties uptown. Subsequent development has followed the subway lines and continued to ramp up in neighborhoods far from the banks of the Chao Phraya.
In the last six years or so, however, the waterfront has been experiencing something of a renaissance. As in other global capitals that rediscovered their river roots, this movement has been spearheaded by artists and bohemian types like Duangrit Bunnag, one of Thailand’s most prominent architects. In late 2013, Bunnag staked his claim to a river revival by transforming a cluster of old Thonburi warehouses into The Jam Factory, where restaurants, an art gallery, and a bookshop are complemented by weekend markets and art events. He then doubled down with Warehouse 30, an even larger creative complex that opened two and a half years ago on the opposite side of the river.
And now, Bunnag seems less outlier than part of a fast-spreading movement. Clubs and cool cafés have sprouted among the crumbling shophouses on Charoenkrung Road, while dockland renewal projects have extended to a once-derelict pier built for Chinese ships in the mid-19th century. Now dubbed Lhong 1919, the collection of offices, warehouses, and courtyards has been converted into retail and restaurant spaces, with a shrine to the Chinese sea goddess Mazu taking center stage.
“The movement has really picked up,” says David Robinson, the Australian co-founder of the Creative District, which helps promote the area’s clutch of arts and lifestyle venues. “More people are moving near the river, and there are more places to eat and go. It’s got a good vibe.”
I’ve had a front-row seat to this rebirth since moving into my apartment at the aptly named River House Condominium, which sits right on the Chao Phraya next to The Jam Factory. At 15 stories, it was the tallest building on this side of the river when it opened in the mid-1980s; now, it’s dwarfed by new neighbors like IconSiam, a mixed-use development that includes Southeast Asia’s biggest shopping mall and two skyscraping residential towers.
And there’s more to come. Leaving the River House on the last leg of my Chao Phraya journey, I pass IconSiam and am soon gaping across the river at the 73-story tower of a new Four Seasons hotel that is slated to open in the next few months. Next door, the 101-room Capella Bangkok is nearing completion, while farther downriver, the ground is about to be broken on a palatial sister property to the beloved Sukhothai hotel in Sathorn. Architect Bill Bensley tells me the plans include as many as 2,000 residential units.
Farther on, the Chao Phraya curls northward and then performs an almost full circle as it wraps around Bang Krachao, a 16-square-kilometer swath of agricultural land and mangroves that is known as Bangkok’s “green lung.” Popular with cyclists, it offers a slice of quiet village life as well as a pleasant botanical garden filled with birdsong.
The neck of Bang Krachao is spanned by the Bhumibol Bridge, which crosses the Chao Phraya twice, its massive curlicues of concrete spinning high into the sky. Like the Rama VII Bridge 16 kilometers to the north, it marks Bangkok’s city limits. On the far side of its road deck are the delta lands of Samut Prakan, a coastal province created during the Ayutthaya period to serve as Siam’s seaport. During the reign of Rama V, Samut Prakan’s eponymous capital had the distinction of being the first Thai city connected to Bangkok by rail, telegraph, and phone line. Its defenses were also beefed up, with a new fort, Phra Chulachomklao, built at the mouth of the river in 1893.
These days, Samut Prakan has been absorbed into the patchwork of Bangkok’s urban sprawl, as was confirmed last December with the extension of the BTS Skytrain into the province. But there are still rice fields to be seen, and other old forts, and lovely temples like Wat Khun Samut Chin, which once sat on the mainland but is now surrounded by the sea and reachable only by boat. A friend of mine who lives nearby tells me the coastal erosion that marooned the temple began a few decades ago when a mangrove forest was cleared to make way for shrimp farms. The tides have gnawed away at the shoreline ever since.
I follow the yawning river mouth to Bang Pu, a recreational area just to the east of the estuary. Here, a long pier extends out into the Gulf of Thailand. It’s thronging with Thai tourists. And seagulls—hundreds of them, screeching and circling overhead in a Hitchcockian finale to my trip. The atmosphere is jolly as people share snacks and pose for holiday snapshots. One popular backdrop is a ring of bamboo poles that has been planted in the silty shallows. It’s in the shape of a heart—a loving Thai farewell, I imagine, to the Chao Phraya’s life-giving waters as they drain into the sea.