4/14/2023 0 Comments Promotional overkillI left emptyhanded, but not before a coffee by the riverside. A traveller’s last stop in an exhibition space is the shop. Here it is a choice between cutting-edge modernity and Southeast Asian antiquity, between kitsch and amateur experimentalism, between souvenirs and stationery. Built on the river, it’s a multi-level modern space that brings art, antiques and refined shopping together in an atmosphere of relaxed sophistication-a perfect place for the evolved flâneur. The antique river adds flavour to whatever the modern Bangkok has to offer.Īnd nothing delighted me more than what the River City, a few steps from the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel, had shown me one afternoon. I would have my moments: a boat ride back from a meal of gaeng crab meat bai cha plu and other finely worded and amazingly curated delicacies, among them an artwork of an omelette called kai yok song, to the hotel a dinner on the buzzy Sirimahannop ship at the Asiatique riverfront and an open-air dinner at the hotel Capella as the river breeze carried the aroma from table to table. It was as if the Maenam, the intimate other name for the Chao Phraya, was the preordained conversation companion for the traveller in post-pandemic Thailand. Till you were presented with the happy result-and the key card-the river would be your sole solace. Confined to your room, it was that inevitable period of waiting for the result of the RT-PCR test you had taken on your way from the airport to the hotel. The Chao Phraya was a lazy allure when seen from my hotel room in Bangkok, which just started welcoming back the international traveller, one morning in late March. ![]() The mortal grandeur along the shores is a reminder of what the river had gone through, of how the physical vulnerability of a city is set against the enduring currents of a civilisation. The city accessorises the river, which, in the traveller’s memory, is the eternal flow of stories.
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