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the doorways and windows are supported by non-structural Romanised pillars. The main
doorway is multiple layered, the door itself deep inside the vestibule. Inside, the rich dé-
cor blends neoclassical and French colonial themes and is lit by stained glass windows set
behind domed arches supported by Romanised pillars. Fresco paintings and bas reliefs ad-
orn the walls, statues of saints line the altar, and the barrel-vault ceiling is set with golden
stars in blue panels.
Outside in the square, the Annunciation Convent and the Catholic Centre face the
cathedral. To the right is Assumption College, a boys' school founded in 1885 and the
third oldest school in Thailand, and to the left is the building of Assumption Printing
Press, looking completely unlike a printing works, with its magnificent classical portico
and its colonial colonnades, but which has played a very significant role in the affairs of
the diocese since the nineteenth century and inside which can be found an intriguing col-
lection of antique printing machinery. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bangkok today
ministers more than 80,000 souls. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral in May 1984, a
visit that is commemorated by a statue in the grounds.
Tucked in behind Assumption, on a lane that is opposite the foot of Silom Road and
which runs down to a public river pier, is a Buddhist temple that is of the tourist trail,
oddly enough given its location, but which has some remarkable old timber architec-
ture. Wat Suan Plu can be reached via an alley off Charoen Krung or through the impos-
ing white gate almost opposite the Shangri-La Hotel. The ubosot is traditional, although
more richly embossed than many temples and with exquisite panel paintings and large
and finely detailed naga and angel figures on the gable ends of the three-leaved roof, but it
is the monks' quarters and the other buildings in the compound that really capture the in-
terest because they are all made from wood with a clapboard effect, and have been stained
cream and red. Follow the lane that runs alongside the Shangri-La, and you come out op-
posite the Ban Oou Mosque, founded by Muslims from Java who came to Bangkok in the
time of Rama IV . Within this small area of land on the riverbank, therefore, within one
minute's walking distance of each other, we find three religions living peacefully together.
Dr Dan Beach Bradley, writing in 1835, at a time when Western influence was minimal
in the affairs of Siam, commented that there was not one square-rigged ship in the Chao
Phraya River. The entire trade of Siam was carried out by Chinese junks, of all sizes
from fifty to five hundred tons. The larger vessels plied between Bangkok and Singapore,
Batavia and Canton, while the smaller ones traded along the eastern and western coasts
of the Gulf. They were carrying rice, timber and gemstones on the outward-bound jour-
ney, and bringing back tea, silk, paper and fancy goods from China, or fabrics, glass-ware
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