Bangkok Begins - 22 Walks in Bangkok - page 3

1511, at the time of their ventures in Malacca, and a year after they had conquered Goa.
They received permission to settle in Ayutthaya in return for supplying guns and ammuni-
tion to the king. The Spanish arrived towards the end of the same century, followed by the
Dutch and the British in the early seventeenth century. The French arrived in 1662, dur-
ing the reign of King Narai, and their influence grew immensely when Narai and Louis xiv
exchanged lavishly-funded delegations.
Despite the short distance to the sea, the meandering course of the Chao Phraya
doubled the distance and meant that sailing to and from Ayutthaya took several days. Dur-
ing the first half of the sixteenth century canal works were undertaken at various points
to improve navigation, and 1542 saw the most ambitious, a two-kilometre (1.24-mile) cut
across a 14-kilometre (8.7-mile) loop that saved a complete day of sailing time. Rather
than remaining a canal, however, the action of the river water widened the cutting so that
it became the main course.
There had already been for many years a customs post and storage depot on the land
within the loop: records from a century before the canal was cut referring to the official
in charge as Nai Phra Khanon Thonburi, the earliest documented appearance of the name
“Thonburi”, which can be translated loosely as “Money Town”. Now an island, the town
gained in importance as a customs port, entrepot and garrison. Ships wishing to sail up-
river were required to pay a tax there, and to deposit their cannon, which they would col-
lect on the way down. A grand name was required for the now fortified port, and in 1557
it became Thonburi Sri Maha Samut, “City of Treasures Gracing the Ocean”.
The area through which the canal had been dug had, however, always been known col-
loquially as Bang Kok, or Bang Makok. No one seems to know which, or why. There are no
Thai records, and the early European accounts give several versions of the spelling. Bang is
the Thai word for a settlement near to water. Kok or makok is a variety of plum, so it is pos-
sible that orchards covered the area. There is some significance in the fact that Wat Arun,
meaning “Temple of the Dawn”, was originally a small temple named Wat Makok. Anoth-
er possibility is that the name was actually Bang Koh, which means “Village on an Island”
and certainly, when the word koh is spoken, it is short and sharp, bearing little relation to
the way it is written in English. There is even a possibility that the Malay word bengkok ,
which means “bend”, could have been borrowed to describe the meandering river. Quite
possibly the name derives from all these sources. Whatever the origin, when the canal was
cut across the land, the name Bangkok continued to be used for both banks and was en-
trenched by the Portuguese and all the European nations who followed them.