22 Walks in Bangkok and written by (walked by?) Kenneth
Barrett (ISBN 978-0-8048-4343-0, Tuttle Publishing, 2013) arrived on my
desk, brought in by our foot messenger. Now, I have never been known as a
champion of the cause of walking, for me, a long walk means I parked my car
at the far end of the car park. So, with that in your mind, let us have a
look at Kenneth Barrett’s ode to shoe leather.
I am not phobic about walking, but I can think of more pleasurable pursuits,
especially in Bangkok. Pattaya, of course, would have been different, a walk
means brushing aside young nubiles and turning down never to be repeated
offers of “Hello sexy man, come inside please!”
Another off-putting factor was the fact that Kenneth
Barrett’s walking was done in the daytime, and that can be hot, steamy, very
hot or very steamy (and we will ignore for the moment multi-colored street
marches by opposing political groups).
Barrett’s 22 walks, however, are well away from the main arterial
thoroughfares and will take you through small sois leading into parks and
back lanes. The detail is just superb; for example, he writes of the Tonson
Mosque, built for the Cham peoples, who came from Vietnam and Cambodia in
the seventh through to the eighteenth centuries. They were made refugees by
the influx of Chinese refugees after the Ming Dynasty collapsed. The
original wooden mosque has been rebuilt many times and author Barrett notes
that “Although avowedly Muslim, they (the Cham) have largely been absorbed
into the Thai identity and are no longer aware of their Cham ancestry.”
(Perhaps this book should be in the Tonson school curriculum!)
Were you aware that the Corrections Museum is on the site of a prison
modelled on the Brixton prison in the UK, and its construction was ordered
by King Rama V? I certainly did not. Or that the Customs House (the original
one) was designed by an Italian?
This book is much more than a guide book to byways and back lanes. It is
also a magnificent history book, able to keep the reader engrossed with
Barrett’s disclosing of the various eras in Bangkok, and how the Bangkok
residents celebrated the times gone by with the development of the suburban
(and urban) areas. But even before that, he explains the migration of the
Tai peoples from China in the seventh century AD and their integration with
the Khmer empire and then trading with China (the Chinese influence evident
even then - I wonder if we had a Free Trade Agreement in those days). There
are several excellent color plates in the center of the book showing the
diversity in Bangkok buildings, with the first Presbyterian church and a Mon
clay brick stupa on the same page. This is Thai history in a most readable
way.
22 Walks in Bangkok is available in Thailand through Asia Books and
Kinokuniya, and the RRP is B. 495. This book will have you looking out your
Doc Martens, but do remember to wear a hat as well. Get this book!
