Travel Journals

Home to Thailand’s largest fresh seafood markets, Samut Sakhon has a few other attractions to offer the weekend tourist

A seaport that 140 years ago was a base for the British operators of the country’s largest sugar factory, Samut Sakhon is now known for its salt farms, seafood factories and hardworking Burmese labourers.

Yet the province really owes its fame to just one man, Phan Thai Norasingh, a royal oarsman. In 1704, while trying to manoeuvre the royal barge, the Ekachai, through a 90-degree turn on the Khok Kham canal, Norasingh collided with a large tree.

The king, Phra Chao Sua, who was onboard for a private fishing trip to the mouth of Tha Chin river, did not complain as no one was hurt. But putting the king’s life on the line was punishable by death, so the oarsman proposed his own execution on the spot.

Impressed with his honesty, the monarch refused. But Norasingh insisted upon an actual beheading, so the king complied and had a shrine built in his honour on the river’s bank. He also ordered the digging of a new canal - Khlong Mahachai - to eliminate the sharp bends of Khok Kham.

Just 36 kilometres from Bangkok’s southern suburbs, Samut Sakhon - still known to many by its old name of Mahachai - is not usually considered a must-see destination, though it’s long been popular with seafood lovers in search of gourmet dinners at reasonable prices.

With factories everywhere, a haphazard network of poorly maintained roads and a city that’s grown without proper planning, Samut Sakhon is chaos at its most animated, so do take a map.

Shrines to the legendary oarsman can be found in several different spots, making it difficult to identify the original, so most interested visitors end up going to them all. Many locals point to the wooden shrine at Wat Khok Kham, one of the oldest temples in the area, which also sports the remnants of an old hardwood boat salvaged from the canal. While the temple is by one of the sharpest bends in the canal, there’s no proof that this is where the accident happened. (more…)

My mother grew up in a canal community along klong (canal) Bangkok Noi, our ancestors having made their way down from Ayutthaya at the end of the Ayutthaya Dynasty. Although part of my life is connected to this community, I enjoy it most during a cruise.

While there are several options along the Chao Phraya River, I chose a Bangkok Noi canal cruise program departing Tha Chang Pier on Ratchadamnoen Nai Road. There are three packages available, the prices based on the duration of your trip.

I chose to take the one-hour option at 800 baht (US$24). Alternatively, you could take additional half hour additions at 200 baht per section. So a one-and-a-half hour trip costs 1,000 baht or a two-hour trip 1,200 baht.

This allows you the option of traveling further with fewer stops, or a more intense but shorter trip with more stops, including a temple or floating market along the way.

The 800-baht package left from Tha Chang Pier, crossing into Klong Chak Phra, then connecting to Klong Bangkok Noi. I was a little nervous about traveling in a long-tailed boat, but since the vessel looked safe and robust, I took the plunge, and off we roared to explore the canal.

I found the surrounding wooden houses along the canal particularly soothing and soon found myself venturing off back to my childhood, when we came along here to visit my grandmother. I often sat on her balcony and watched the passing boats, waving when the tourists passed by.

I was jolted back to the present by some youngsters playing guitars along the bank. They waved, but I was just too shy to wave back. Maybe next time, I thought. And before I knew it, another long-tailed boat passed by, filled with friendly faces. By now I had started to relax and waved back. Another boat had pulled up at a dock, its passengers enthralled by something.

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