The Khlong Saen Saep in Bangkok

Until the end of the 19th century, Bangkok was known as the “Venice of the East”. Along the Chao Phraya River and its many canals, people did business, celebrated festivals, forged iron and wove silk. In many cases, central and peripheral areas of the city could only be reached by sailing on waterways.

Over the last century, rampant urbanisation has transformed the Thai capital. The number of boats has decreased to accommodate buses, tuk-tuks, cars, the metro, and the Sky Train. Many canals have been buried, but others are still part of the urban fabric. Among these, we cannot fail to come across the Khlong Saen Saep, even if only by chance. A pavement suddenly turns into a quay, a road becomes a bridge, and below us, a long tail boat whizzes with its boatman poised on the gunwale like an expert tightrope walker.

The canal is 72 km long and connects the Chao Phraya River to Bang Pakong, in the province of Chachoengsao. When it was built by order of King Rama III in 1837, its purpose was to transport soldiers and weapons during the ongoing conflict between Siam and Cambodia. In its urban section, where today we see skyscrapers and shopping malls, the Khlong flowed alongside vast rice fields. An American missionary visiting Bangkok was struck by how the farmers protected the newly planted seeds from the voracity of the birds. On the muddy soil, platforms five or six feet high were erected. Men, women and children climbed on them and screamed until they lost their voices. Seeing their dark, petite bodies standing out in the sun’s glare over the marsh was a moving sight.

In the 1960s, American Jim Thompson, the Silk King, chose the Saen Saep canal bank to build his house, today one of the city’s most visited attractions and consisting of nine traditional teakwood houses brought to Bangkok from various parts of Thailand. In the city, Jim Thompson House was known for its valuable art collection and its owner’s lavish receptions, during which he would entertain guests by showing them Cocky, his cockatoo parrot.

Jim Thompson’s parties were not the only events that animated the canal. The Khlong Saen Saep was famous for its exuberant nightlife, marked by an extensive network of floating brothels known as “water babies”. Negotiations took place under the bridges and, if successful, clients could consume their minutes of “paid love” on a comfortable (but hardly romantic) boat. However, at the end of the 1960s, a massive police operation that dismantled the water babies and the mysterious disappearance of Jim Thompson tempered the canal’s vitality.

Today, a different dynamism is seen along the Khlong Saen Saep. The eighteen kilometres that run across the capital are crisscrossed every day by hundreds of boats operating a regular service, used by workers, families and tourists. Markets and food stalls are crowded until late at night with customers of all nationalities and dense swarms of mosquitoes for which this place has always been known as “the khlong with a hundred thousand stings”.

Read more:

• Gerald W. Fry, Gayla S. Nieminen, Harold E. Smith. Historical Dictionary of Thailand. Scarecrow Press, 2013.
• Maryvelma O’Neil. Bangkok: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press, USA, 2008.

Cover photo: © Pierpaolo Ferlaino