Bangkok Flow

The chao phraya river threads through my childhood memories, its broad silty waters curling through rice pad- dies in the countryside before drifting past the burgeoning skyline of Bangkok, where I grew up. From a young age, I cruised the river’s ferry system with my grandfather, a cloth merchant who supplied bolts of cotton up and down the river. Shoulder to shoulder with other river commuters, we throttled past bulky barges and slender longtail boats to Ratchawongse Pier, where my grandfather looked in on clients in the city’s Chinese and Indian garment districts. Read on…