Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LIVING WITH HISTORY
Pratapan Chatmalai is the community leader of the Chantaboon Waterfront Community Association. She grew
up here and fondly remembers Chantaboon's tight-knit community of culturally diverse people. Today, she
works to save the stories and the character of this community in Chanthaburi.
What Does Your Organisation Do?
Now this community is a 'grandma' city. The old city is losing life and the young people have moved away. I
want to keep the culture for the next generation to learn about and I'm trying to help the people in the area have
a good life. We run the Learning House so that people can come look at the daily life of the past.
What Do You Recommend Tourists See or Do in the Old City?
There is unique history and lifestyle of the past here. Come look at the cathedral, Chinese shrines and old
houses. Each house is different and mixes Thai, Chinese and Western styles. Eat at the local restaurants. There
are seafood noodles, old-style ice cream and dim sum. If you get tired, you can have a massage in an old Thai-
style house.
What Is Your Favourite Part of the Old City?
I love the whole place because it is a living museum and I can walk along and talk to the people about the past
and make them happy.
As told to China Williams
TOP OF CHAPTER
Trat
POP 21,590
A major transit point for Ko Chang and coastal Cambodia, Trat's provincial charms are
underappreciated. The guesthouse neighbourhood occupies an atmospheric wooden shop-
house district, bisected by winding sois and filled with typical Thai street life: kids riding
bikes, housewives running errands, small businesses selling trinkets and necessities.
Since your destination is still far away, stay a little longer and enjoy all the things you
can't get on the islands: fresh, affordable fruit, tasty noodles and tonnes of people-watch-
ing.
Trat's signature product is a medicinal herbal oil (known in Thai as
nám·man lĕu·ang
),
touted as a remedy for everything from arthritis to bug bites and available at local phar-
macies. It's produced by resident Mae Ang-Ki (Somthawin Pasananon), using a secret
pharmaceutical recipe that has been handed down through her Chinese-Thai family for
generations. It's said that if you leave Trat without a couple of bottles of
nám·man
lĕu·ang
, then you really haven't been here.
