The former residence of Rama I at Wat Rakhang, converted into a library.
Taksin had the Buddhist scriptures, the Tripitaka, brought up from the south for the monks to study under the supervision of a learned monk named Phra Archan Si, who was appointed abbot of Wat Bang Wa Yai. Rama I continued the royal patronage of the temple. During the late Thonburi period he had used a set of timber buildings near to Taksin’s palace as his residence, and he moved these to the temple compound for use as a library. During the renovation work a particularly melodious bell, or rakhang, was found in the eastern part of the compound. The king ordered the bell shipped across the river for installation in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and had five new bells sent back in exchange. He also decreed that the temple be renamed Wat Rakhang, the Temple of the Bell.
The most picturesque way to approach Wat Rakhang is by ferry, boarding at Tha Chang Pier and disembarking at the jetty with its two uniformed matelot statues, for the pier also services the Naval Hospital next door, which provides medical treatment for sailors and their families. Vendors line the short distance from the jetty to the temple, and weekends, especially Sundays, are a lively time to visit for there is something almost like a carnival atmosphere. Several vendors sell turtles that merit-makers buy and release into the river, and a number of urchins stand by with wide grins waiting to dive into the warm brown waters and retrieve the hapless creatures ready for the next worshipper. Being a turtle in Bangkok is not exactly a blast. There are bells everywhere. Two beautiful blue-and-gold bells hang in front of the ubosot, there are bell designs on the door and the window shutters, and if devotees ring each of the long row of bells hanging in the courtyard they will be blessed with good luck; which explains why the air is continually filled with the tinkling and clanging of bells. The five bells presented by Rama I hang in a bell tower to the front of the temple, four of them painted a light blue, the centre bell a dark blue.
A few steps from the bell tower is the king’s former residence, now known as the Tripitaka Hall. When the buildings were moved to the temple grounds a pond was dug so that they could stand on stilts in the water, and thereby keep insects away from the paper and parchment documents. That has now been filled in, and the building stands framed in green trees, a classical piece of Siamese teak architecture. Stained in red ochre are three buildings, each with a distinctive gable. Entering the front door, one is standing inside the central room. The unit on the right side is the reading room, and that on the left the retiring room. The inside walls are covered with murals depicting the daily life of that time, painted by Acharn Nak, who was a monk in the time of Rama I. The paints used to create these murals were tempera mixed with latex, a form of colouring that yields neither shading nor the brightness that can be seen in works of art created in the Ayutthaya period, but the artist was working in a time of great turmoil for Siam and possibly paints from China or India were not easily available.
There is a pleasant little stony lane here, and if the lane is followed around to the left one comes to the former home of a remarkable lady. Khunying Supatra Singholka, who passed away in 1993 at the age of 83, was from an aristocratic family. Her father was Phya Rajamountre, a noble in the court of Rama VI, and her mother was Khunying Boonpan. Rama VI was the literary king, a monarch who produced many learned works in addition to plays. One of his papers was entitled “The Status of Women is an Indicator of a Society’s Civilisation”, and it was a profound and controversial work for its era and the conservative Siamese beliefs of the time. Supatra herself first became involved with women’s rights when she entered Thammasat University as a law student, and she made this her mission in life, helping to produce legislation to amend laws that discriminated against women. Amongst her achievements over the years were the obtaining of equal rights for wives to handle legal matters without a husband’s prior consent, in ensuring a husband’s automatic approval of his wife’s business dealings, and other changes in the law relating to marriage registration and divorce alimony.
In addition to being a very prominent lawyer, Supatra was a successful businesswoman, the owner of Bangkok’s largest ferry and express boat business. She also owned a large area of land along the riverbank here in the vicinity of Wat Rakhang, and she left a very prominent legacy. Firstly there is Supatra’s house, which has been converted into a stylish restaurant named Supatra River House. On the terrace each weekend is staged a theatrical display, the players being from the Patravadi Theatre next door. Owner Patravadi Meechuthon is the daughter of Supatra, and one of Thailand’s most accomplished actresses. The theatre is very much the preserve of ancient Siamese traditions, in addition 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 metal casting, and during Taksin’s time and on into the early Rattanakosin periods they produced 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, pouring 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 elsewhere, 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 otherwise this is now just a quiet residential lane. Substantial space was needed for some of 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 signboard 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, khao mao. 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 (khao mao mee), toffee (kalamae med), and desserts such as