Santa Cruz is only a few minutes’ walk from the Memorial Bridge via the attractive walkway that has been built along the riverbank in recent years. An equally picturesque entry can be made by ferry from Pak Klong Talat, the flower market on the other side of the river, for the church has its own pier. The neighbourhood is quiet and neat, and the church precincts are almost silent. Unless your visit is at a time of worship the only other visitors are likely to be local residents passing through on their way to and from the river. During school hours the voices of children can be heard from the Santa Cruz Suksa School and Santa Cruz Convent, and nuns can sometimes be seen flitting through the precinct, but otherwise the visitor is alone. A number of statues stand in the grounds, including one of Mary set in a garden grotto near the river, and there is a large crucifix next to the pier. Santa Cruz Church is painted in delicate pastels of cream and red ochre, with stained glass fanlights above the windows. The roof is a barrel vault structure, and there is a classic pediment and Italian frescoes over the altar. A handsome two-storey presbytery stands on one side of the precinct, and to the rear of the church, away from the river, there is a tiny cemetery with the graves of former pastors.
Thonburi, of course, was short-lived. In 1786, four years after Bangkok was established as the capital, King Rama I granted the Portuguese land on the riverbank at Chinatown, and here they built Holy Rosary Church. Their influence was nonetheless dwindling, especially in religious work where French missionaries largely eclipsed them during the nineteenth century. Santa Cruz Convent, for example, was founded by the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres, a French order, in 1906.
The Portuguese have, however, left behind a very tangible legacy. The Thais had not known the art of baking until the Portuguese settled in Ayutthaya, and indeed the Thai word for bread, pung, comes from a word for bread used by the Portuguese at that time. The Kudi Cheen community baked their own bread and cakes, and today there are still bakeries here producing a sponge cake known as khanom farang Kudi Cheen, using apple and jujube and made to the same recipe used in the time of the Portuguese merchants and priests who had thrived in Ayutthaya. The largest bakery is located directly to one side of the precinct, entered via an unmarked doorway set between a statue of Jesus as the Good Shepherd and a modern three-storey house that is only one room wide. No one appears to mind if you wander inside. There are a handful of women putting the mix and fruit into star-shaped moulds, while the baking is done by a man who places the moulds in a tandoor-like oven and then puts a tray over the top, which he heaps with glowing coals. The baking done, the cakes are packed into cellophane bags and every so often a bicycle-powered cart will depart from the premises and deliver them to shops in the locality.
The Kudi Cheen houses in the vicinity of Santa Cruz are smart and have a prosperous air about them, and as there are no roads here, only footpaths, there is an agreeably sleepy atmosphere. This is still very much a Catholic community, even though the blood of those Portuguese settlers has long since mingled with Thai and Chinese blood, and Christian images can be seen on the houses and fences. Each of the tiny lanes is neatly numbered, although many are cul de sacs, and charting a way through the maze is not easy. Soon, though, the path emerges onto the riverside walkway. There is an intriguing old house here that looks as if it has been abandoned for many years, but in fact is still occupied, after a fashion. Standing on church land, the house is constructed of golden teak and is founded upon a solid stone platform, which has protected it from the waterlogged ground. Faded and blackened with age, its shutters firmly closed, its front door occasionally open to allow the river breezes to blow through, this is Windsor House, or Baan Windsor, a classic example of the gingerbread style that is known as Ruen Manila. Louis Windsor, a wealthy British merchant who had settled in Bangkok during the reign of King Rama IV and who married a Thai woman, Somboon, built the house. Their home was passed down the generations to the modern-day Jutayothin family, who leased it to expatriates during World War II and have ever since lived in a nearby residence, leaving caretakers in place. There has been a recent move to register Windsor House with the Fine Arts Department and turn it into a museum for the Kudi Cheen area.
The riverside shrine to Kuan Yin is in a classic Chinese design.
A few metres along the walkway the Catholic community ends at a small waterway and the Chinese district begins. Taksin had encouraged the Hokkien Chinese to settle here. Residents had originally built two shrines on this site, but during the reign of Rama III the shrines were pulled down and replaced with a single temple to the goddess of mercy, Kuan Yin. Over the course of a number of years the temple fell into a state of dilapidation until the reign of Rama V, when one of Siam’s best-known historians, Prince Damrong Rachanuphap, passed through the community on his way to neighbouring Wat Kanlayanamit to take part in the casting of a large bell. He noted the decayed condition of the building, the cracking of the mural paintings, the deterioration of the carvings on the roof, and the depredations of rain and bats, and he urged the conservation of the temple that was, he said, a masterpiece created by skilled artists who even then were becoming hard to find. Today, the temple remains faded on the exterior, although a bright red archway has recently been added at the walkway, leading through to a red-tiled courtyard. Two dragons writhe on the roof. There are some beautiful bas-reliefs and murals on the exterior walls, framed in blue, but they have become weathered and much of the paint has disappeared. Inside, seen through swirling clouds of incense smoke, the wall paintings are vivid, traditional golden silk lanterns hang from the roof beams, and a one-metre-high statue of Kuan Yin sits serenely at the back of the altar, facing the river. The shrine is cared for by a local family and has a steady stream of Chinese visitors, albeit ones with a tendency to become somewhat agitated when a large foreigner hoves into view with a camera.
From the walkway of the Memorial Bridge, Wat Kanlayanamit, an enormous barn-like structure that rises above the neighbouring rooftops, dominates this part of the riverbank. Oddly, though, it is easy to walk straight past the entrance when following the riverside pathway, because it is an unassuming one next to a clutter of wooden shops and eating houses, and the temple is set further back from the river than it appears from a distance. Passing through the gate one is within another distinctive aspect of the Chinese community. A Chinese nobleman named Toh Kanlayanamit, who owned a residence on this piece of land, founded Wat Kanlayanamit in 1825 and the design is a blending of Chinese and Thai styles. At the river entrance are two Chinese pavilions, built from brick and encased in mortar to give the appearance of stone, and next to the small wiharn to the rear of the compound is a Chinese chedi. On the other side of the wiharn is an elegant bell tower housing the giant bell, the biggest bronze bell in Thailand, which Prince Damrong had watched being cast. Inside the wiharn are murals dating