Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tion to exploring more modern forms, and there is a small shop at the entrance where
khon masks are displayed. Supatra's other daughter, Supapan Pichaironnarongsongkram,
has inherited her mother's business acumen, and today operates the family Chao Phraya
Express riverboat service.
Opposite the Naval Hospital is a little alley named Soi Arun Amarin 23, and here, in
the houses straddling Taksin's moat, is a community that is known as Ban Matoom and
which for generations has been famous for selling and preserving the fruit of the bael tree
(
matoom
in Thai), a tree that is native to India but which has spread through parts of
Southeast Asia. The bael fruit is the size of a large grapefruit and has a woody shell that is
so hard it has to be cracked open with a hammer or a machete. The pulp has a floral aroma
and a bitter-sweet flavour, and can be eaten fresh, boiled with syrup, dried, or taken as a
particularly refreshing drink. Today, there are only four families in Ban Matoom selling
bael fruit, a contrast to the past when the entire community made a living from it. The
families buy the fresh fruit from Sukhothai and Phichit provinces. The best time to visit is
from July to April, when the fruit is in season, but outside this period the community sells
preserved bael and bael fruit tea.
Following the Ban Matoom alley round into the lane that runs alongside Taksin's moat,
across Itsaraphap 39 and into the continuation of the lane, which becomes Soi Ban Chang
Lo, one passes through yet another community that has recently become almost extinct.
Ban Chang Lo is where Buddha images were cast, the earliest craftsmen having come
down from Ayutthaya during the Thonburi era and settled here, which at the time was just
outside the palace walls. These were foundry workers, skilled at mould making and met-
al casting, and during Taksin's time and on into the early Rattanakosin periods they pro-
duced weapons such as swords, guns and cannon for the army. One of their masterpieces
is a cannon named Phra Piroon, now on display at the National Museum. They started
to focus on making Buddha statues during the reigns of Rama
II
and
III
, when both kings
built and restored many temples, and this continued through to the modern era. Each
family specialised in a certain skill, such as sculpting, making moulds, mixing gold, pour-
ing hot metal, and polishing and decorating with gold lacquer and mirrors. They used clay
moulds until Corrado Feroci introduced plaster moulds, which can be used half a dozen
times or more. Pollution control regulation in 1992 forced the craftsmen to move else-
where, mostly to Nakhon Pathom's Phutthamonthon area. There is some small-scale work
that is still done here, and a few offices continuing to take orders for the factories, but oth-
erwise this is now just a quiet residential lane. Substantial space was needed for some of
