As a protection from marauders, he had the safest place in the kingdom. Taksin made this area his royal court, building his palace directly next to Wichaiprasit Fort, with Wat Arun as his immediate neighbour on the other side. These three temples had all existed since the Ayutthaya era, with no one really knowing when they were founded, and indeed at this period they were all known by different names to those of today. Yai next to Wat Molilokkayaram, and the waterway passing behind Wat Arun, running parallel to the river until it reached Klong Bangkok Noi, at Wat Amarin. When King Taksin established Thonburi as his capital he took the original fortified area and strengthened it by having a canal dug as a moat, the southern end connecting to Klong Bangkok On the east bank of the river, the Bangkok side, the corresponding fort built by the French is an enormous star-shape, and outside of this, again, the land is marked as farms and orchards. Clearly, Money Town had been essentially for officialdom and the military, while the community that depended upon it had lived largely outside the walls, on the river and alongside the canals, for this was the era when ordinary folk dwelled upon the water rather than on the usually marshy land. With the fort at its southeast corner, a rectangle of fortifications spreads back almost as far as Klong Bangkok Noi, and outside of this rectangle the land is marked as being agricultural. King Narai’s Wichaiprasit Fort, built in the 1660s and expanded by the French under the naval officer Chevalier de Forbin, sits formidably at the mouth of Klong Bangkok Yai, a watchful presence for ships heading upriver to Ayutthaya. The earliest maps of Thonburi, dating from the latter half of the seventeenth century, show a very modest sized township. There are a number of naval type facilities along the river, museums and the like and, so, major changes in the district may be slower than in some other districts in Bangkok.This walk takes us through the earliest part of the Thonburi settlement, when it was a customs port and garrison town for the capital of Ayutthaya, further upriver. Main condos in Bangkok NoiĪ number of developers such as Sansiri and LPN are active in the area and the new MRT links will no doubt encourage more developers to build condos in the area where they can. Recreational featuresĪs a commercial/residential/institutional type district, there are few parks and other such amenities. Street side shopping predominates, with extensive markets around Sriraj Hospital and the nearby ferry piers, although the major large-scale shopping centre is Central Pinklao. Other main transport linksīangkok Noi is served by the Riva Surya bridge and several major roads and highways. The MRT Blue Line is under construction with new stations at Fai Chai and Bang Khun Non. There is a major arterial road to the west. Just west of the Chao Phraya River and bounded partially by the river to its east and partly by a tributary of the river to the north. The area is home to the National Museum of Barges and several naval type facilities, plus the world famous Siriraj Hospital. Primarily a working district west of the river, epitomising the older, low rise style of Bangkok living, yet with new developments springing up here and there.
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