Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [34]
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Early Bangkok was as much a citadel as a city. Today the massive whitewashed walls of Phra Sumen Fort still loom over one end of trendy Th Phra Athit, thrusting out towards Mae Nam Chao Phraya. This brick-and-stucco bunker was one of 14 city Ъôrm (fortresses) built along Khlong Banglamphu, which forms a bow-shaped arc carving an ‘island’ out of Mae Nam Chao Phraya’s left bank.
On the other side of the battlements, Khlong Banglamphu cuts away from the river at a sharp angle, creating the northern tip of Ko Ratanakosin, the royal island that once was the whole of Bangkok. Although often neglected by residents and visitors alike, here stands one of the capital’s pivotal points in understanding the city’s original plan.
In the other direction, the 7km-long canal curves gently inland towards another wall-and-bunker cluster, Mahakan Fort, marking the southern reach of Ko Ratanakosin. Of the 4m-high, 3m-thick ramparts that once lined the entire canal, only Phra Sumen and Mahakan have been preserved to remind us what 18th-century Bangkok really was about – keeping foreign armies at bay.
Beginning in the early 19th century, Thai kings relinquished the mandala concept and began refashioning the city following European and American models, a process that has continued to this day. Open trade with the Portuguese, Dutch, English, French and Chinese had made the fortifications obsolete by the mid-19th century, and most of the original wall was demolished to make way for sealed roadways. By 1900 these roadways were lined with two-storey, brick-and-stucco Sino-Gothic shophouses inspired by Rama V’s visits to Singapore and Penang.
Following WWII, when the Japanese briefly occupied parts of the city, Thai engineers built bridges over Mae Nam Chao Phraya and began filling in canals to provide space for new roads and shophouses. Although many residents continued to occupy stilted houses along the klorng and to move about their neighbourhoods by boat, a future of cars and asphalt was inevitable. In the 1960s and ’70s the capital’s area doubled in size, yet scant attention was paid to managing growth. Well into the 1980s, as adjacent provinces began filling with factories, housing estates, shopping malls, amusement parks and golf courses, urban planning was virtually nonexistent.
Bangkok’s first official city plan was issued in 1992, and nowadays the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) employs engineers and urban-planning experts to tackle growth and make plans for the future. So far most planning remains confined to paper – noble ideas without supporting actions, or with actions thwarted by infighting and profiteering. In theory city authorities have the power to regulate construction by zones, and to monitor land use, but in practice most new developments follow capital, with little thought given to such issues as parking, drainage, or social and environmental impact. For the most part city planners seem preoccupied with the immediate exigencies of maintaining basic city services.
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7-ELEVEN FOREVER
Be extremely wary of any appointment that involves the words ‘meet me at 7-Eleven’. According to the company’s website there are 3912 branches of 7-Eleven in Thailand alone (there will inevitably be several more by the time this has gone to print) – more than half the number found in the entire United States. In Bangkok, 7-Elevens are so ubiquitous that it’s not uncommon to see two branches staring at each other from across the street.
The first sair·wên (as it’s known in Thai) in Thailand was installed at Patpong in Bangkok in 1991. The brand caught on almost immediately and today Thailand ranks behind only Japan and Taiwan in the total number of branches in Asia. The stores are either owned