Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the image-making activities and several families have capitalised on the freeing up of their
land, so that in recent years new residential developments have appeared in this area.
Strolling north along Soi Ban Chang Lo, turning left into Phran Nok Road and then
right into Itsaraphap Road will lead to a small alley named Soi Khao Mao 1, which runs
behind Wat Sutthawat. A couple of minutes down here, just when it seems the visitor is
heading into a pleasant but featureless residential area, there is a junction with a sign-
board that advises he is in Ban Khao Mao, another Thonburi-era community that has
known days of greatness but which is now sadly diminished. In the days when this land
was fruit orchards threaded by waterways, boats would arrive from rice-growing districts
carrying young green rice,
khaomao
. The community, which traces its roots directly from
Khao Mao village in the Uthai district in Ayutthaya, would pound the green rice and make
dishes such as crispy fried noodles (
khaomaomee
), toffee (
kalamaemed
), and desserts
such as
khaoniewdaeng
.
Khaomao
was a good food supply during times of war since it
can be kept for a long time and becomes soft and edible once sprinkled with water. King
Taksin kept his troops supplied with
khaomao
as regular army rations. Ban Khao Mao
supplied the households of royalty and nobility with traditional Siamese desserts and oth-
er delicacies during the Thonburi period and throughout the nineteenth century. A few
families here still make and sell
khao mao
, and there is a small museum nearby, in the
grounds of Wat Sutthawat, that tells of this and other traditional skills that once flourished
in the area.
Many of the refugees who managed to get out of Ayutthaya when the Burmese des-
troyed the city were skilled craftsmen who travelled down the river to Thonburi, where
they once again flourished, briefly under Taksin and then to a greater degree under the
Chakri dynasty, as Bangkok was founded. One little band of travellers set up a community
in Thonburi on the bank of the Bangkok Noi canal. They called their village Ban Bu, after
the trade they had brought with them. The word
bu
doesn't translate directly, but it means
to hammer gently and rhythmically, as a smithy does when he is forming something del-
icate like a plate or cup. These people were bronze smiths, making the ornamental bronze
bowls and goblets for the temples and palaces of Ayutthaya.
Ancient timber houses straggle along the bank of the Bangkok Noi canal beside Wat
Suwannaram, and there is a century-old market hall, Wat Thong Talat, with a handsome
truss-beam roof. Ban Bu main street is nothing more than a pathway a few feet wide, just
broad enough to take the motorcycles that buzz down here, past the temple and over the
humped bridge that crosses a small inlet from the canal. There is a pleasantly timeless feel,
but time has changed the village of the bronzesmiths, for the number of manufacturers
