Chao Phraya river at night
Like the most beautiful capitals in the world, Bangkok has a river, the Chao Prahya. A true river that is not put there to embellish corners and photographs: during most of the year it adopts a brown color full of water and trunks during the floods in the north and covered with lilies and water lilies in the dry season.
And it is crossed by long rows of rice barges towed by small boats, tall and sumptuous when empty and flush with the water when loaded. By tourist and liner boats, restaurant boats and noisy rev hang yao, speedboats powered by powerful truck engines and propellers that spin on the surface of the water.
If on the left side of the river, most of the canals are engulfed by cement , to rediscover life it is necessary to move to the other shore, that of Thonburi, the old capital, dominated by Wat Arun.
Although it is not exactly a labyrinth -as the chronicles of nineteenth-century travelers narrated- it can be said that it is a intricate set of flowing canals since ancient times. There are children who have swimming competitions, precarious barbershops on barges and, in fact, a branch of a bank, also floating, of course. In short, a life marked by the rhythm of the oars.
Map: See map
Address: Chao Prahya River See map
Guy: Lakes and rivers