Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Although the riverfront is hogged in most places by industry and commercial develop-
ments, rendering the river itself invisible, there are a series of beautiful riverside temples
that continue on in their timeless way. To begin an exploration of these, it is necessary to
start on the other side of the river, at the foot of the Rama
III
Bridge, not at a Buddhist
temple but at one of the first footholds of Christianity in Bangkok, where the Americans
founded the Presbyterian Mission in 1849.
The Catholics have always been in Bangkok, before even the city was founded, repres-
ented principally by the descendants of the Portuguese of Ayutthaya, who over time had
been absorbed into Siamese society and regarded as just another community with differ-
ent religious beliefs, alongside the Cham Muslims, the Indian Hindus, the Chinese Taoists
and others. The Protestants, however, didn't arrive in Bangkok until 1828, when the Lon-
don Missionary Society sent the Reverend Jacob Tomlin and the Reverend Carl Gutzlaff.
More missionaries arrived in 1833, these being sent by the American Board of Commis-
sioners for Foreign Missions. Intending to direct their efforts towards the Chinese pop-
ulation, they settled in a house near to Wat Samphanthawong in Chinatown. This is the
group that Dr Dan Beach Bradley joined when he arrived in 1835, and in that year the
mission moved across the water to the Kudi Cheen community. Missionaries from the
American Presbyterian Mission began arriving in 1840 and stayed initially with the other
Protestants in Kudi Cheen, where the influence of the community was growing, due in no
