Chao Phraya Diaries: Layers of a City

In the Valmiki Ramayana, the great Hindu epic, there is an interesting apocryphal story. After the abduction of Sita, wife of Ayodhya’s king Ram, his ally Sugriva, king of the Vanaras (monkey race), dispatched his forces to search for her. His search parties went in all four directions with detailed descriptions of the lands they were to explore. The party headed east was told of islands and lands beyond the sea where the sun rises, apparently called Suvarnabhumi, the “Land of Gold.” While ancient texts refer to Suvarnabhumi as a place where traders acquired wealth, particularly gold, there is archaeological evidence that the riverbeds and streambeds of modern-day Thailand were a source of alluvial gold, eroded from distant rock formations.

About a thousand years later, around 500 AD, the Pallavas of Southern India (present day Tamil Nadu) started venturing eastwards via the sea for trade, and forged a deep connection with these lands of Southeast Asia. Their flourishing commerce of textiles, beads, semi-precious stones, and spices also exported Indian culture, religion (Hinduism and Buddhism), architectural styles (rock-cut temples), and scripts The Cholas, who succeeded the Pallavas and dominated Southern India (~800-1300 AD), multiplied this maritime trade with Suvarnabhumi. It transformed Southeast Asia into a heartland of Hindu and Buddhist ideas – a legacy still visible today across Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, and Indonesia. The temples at Prambanan (Indonesia), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), and the vast Buddhist complex of Borobudur are remnants of this ‘golden’ period.

I have just landed at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in modern Bangkok, a bustling metropolis of 10 million people. Even on an early summer morning, the city feels hot, humid, and intense. There is movement everywhere, the roads are already choked, and a certain tropical smell pervades the air. Amidst this moment of rushed life, I think of the stillness of the city’s sacred spaces I have visited in the past, and the beauty of these opposing forces coexisting on the same landmass.

To truly understand Bangkok, it’s perhaps wise to begin with the topography. Thailand’s defining feature is the Chao Phraya River basin, covering almost one-third of the country’s land with verdant, fertile plain shaped by millennia of alluvial deposits. The Chao Phraya, or “River of Kings,” flows nearly 400 kilometers southward from the central plains to the Gulf of Thailand. Both ancient Ayutthaya and modern Bangkok lie downstream, strategically located just before the river reaches the sea.

Ayutthaya, located about 80 kilometers north of Bangkok, was a cosmopolitan capital around 1500 AD, serving as the center of an eponymous kingdom. Ayutthaya is an interesting natural ‘island’ at the confluence of three rivers (the Chao Phraya, Pasak, and Lop Buri), which provided a natural defense – a ‘moat’, before the term was claimed by capital markets. With Buddhism at its cultural core, Ayutthaya flourished through trade, drawing merchants from across Asia and Europe. It was here that the practice of digging canals (khlongs) began, to shorten trade routes by cutting across meanders in the river, making transport more efficient for merchants. Communities grew along these waterways, using them for transport, irrigation for rice fields, and daily life.

The ‘island’ of Ayutthaya (Image courtesy: Google Maps)

Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese in 1767, after which the deposed King Taksin established a new capital at Thonburi, a riverside village further downstream on the western bank of the Chao Phraya. This area is also home to modern-day Wat Arun, which at the time existed as an older Buddhist temple (its current structure was completed in the mid-1850s). Taksin’s successor later moved the capital across the river to the eastern bank, establishing it at Rattanakosin, a site chosen for its natural partial enclosure by the river, much like Ayutthaya. The traditional practice of digging canals (khlongs) was used extensively, transforming Rattanakosin into an artificial island crisscrossed with both natural and man-made waterways, turning Bangkok into the “Venice of the East.” This was the Bangkok of late 1700s and mid-1800s, where people lived in stilt houses, commuted by boat, and shopped at floating markets. Remnants of that aquatic past still survive today, more for tourists than for trade.

The banks of the Chao Phraya define Bangkok’s historic core: the Grand Palace, Wat Pho (Sleeping Buddha), and Wat Arun. This is the Bangkok of golden spires, monks in saffron robes, and ceremonial rhythm. Further east lies the modern commercial heart – Sathorn, Silom, and Sukhumvit – with glass towers, BTS Skytrain lines, and upscale cafes. Despite this crude description, Bangkok does not really have a ‘historic district’ or ‘old town’ tucked away for camera-toting tourists. Instead, it’s a sprawl of overlapping worlds: royal palaces and riverside temples, tangled street markets, sleek malls, roadside altars, canal-side communities, rooftop bars, and neighborhood life that hums in between like a colorful timelapse.

The banks of  Chao Phraya  and Bangkok's historic core: Thonburi on the western bank, and the 'island' of Rattanakosin on the eastern bank (Image courtesy: Google Maps)

As the city modernized, many canals were paved over for roads, rails, and buildings, shifting Bangkok from a water-centric layout to one dominated by land transport, along with its infamous traffic. Chao Phraya, however, remained a vital transport artery. A City Line ferry from Prannok to Sathorn offered me a charming passage through the heart of the city, and almost through time. Expert boatmen, who may have lived for generations by the river’s rhythm, dock and undock the boat effortlessly at five stops along my route, each feeling nothing longer than a metro stop. The water offers a good vantage point to see the spires of ancient temples rising along the water, followed by the gradual unfolding of modern skyscrapers as the boat moves further south. Being on a local boat suddenly takes away the rush of the city’s roads, and Bangkok’s past and present seem frozen in this skyline above water.

I visit Wat Arun on the western bank again, this time on a Saturday morning. The short ferry crossing from Tha Tien on the eastern bank of the river still feels like the best way to get there: the boat ride offers a phenomenal view of its distinctive 70-meter-high central prang (spire), slowly growing on one’s spirit. The whole temple complex is a curious amalgamation of Hindu and Buddhist symbolism. Primarily, it is a Buddhist temple, named after Arun, the Hindu sun god. The structure of the prang is a derivation of Buddhist pagodas but is topped by a trident, believed to belong to another Hindu god, Shiva, with the prang itself symbolizing Mount Meru of the Hindus. There is a terrace that can be reached by a steep flight of stairs, dividing the structure into three symbolic levels in Buddhist iconography: the base indicating all realms of existence, the middle representing one of the seven heavens, and the top denoting the remaining six heavens. The decorations on the prang, made of colorful porcelain shards and sea snail shells, depict beautiful figurines of Yakshas (giants) and monkeys supporting it on all sides, along with prominent statues of the Hindu god Indra riding his elephant, Airavata. The temple once hosted the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred Thai icon, which was subsequently moved across the river to the Grand Palace. A hall next to the prang now houses the Niramitr Buddha. This intertwining of Hinduism and Buddhism makes me ponder the fluidity of religion: in the short run, it appears largely orthodox; in the long run, it survives through adaptation.

Wat Arun might also be the most photographed temple in Bangkok. Tourists flock to the “rent Thai costume” services, and nearly every photographer seems to take the mandatory shot of flowing fabric from a traditional garment worn by their subject, set against the backdrop of Wat Arun’s architecture. Local youth gather in equal numbers for wedding photoshoots or to record TikTok reels in traditional clothing, churning the wheels of social media and the modern economy. Looking up from the base on the middle terrace, the traditional colors of Thai garments blend so seamlessly with the colorful porcelain of the spire walls and their figurines that my friend remarks, “this is a game of find-the-human.”

A close up of Yakshas on the decorated central prang of Wat Arun (Image courtesy: Shesmax, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

My destination during this visit on Rattanakosin Island, on the eastern bank, is Wat Pho, an old Buddhist temple complex a few meters south of the Grand Palace. While the temple predates the founding of Bangkok, it was rebuilt and expanded in the late 1700s and renamed as a homage to the most sacred site in Buddhism: Bodh Gaya (the common contraction of Bodhi Tree in Southeast Asia is Bo Tree). The complex houses a large collection of Buddha images, the most popular being the 46-meter-long reclining Buddha. This figure is said to represent the Buddha’s entry into Nirvana and the end of all reincarnations. The posture is called siha-saiyas, or “sleeping lion.” The soles of the Buddha’s feet are a distinctive feature, decorated with auspicious symbols made from mother-of-pearl. Narrow hallways encircle the reclining statue, with beautiful murals adorning the walls and ceiling. The building carries a mixed energy of devotion, awe, and modern tourism. Dropping coins in the 108 bronze bowls that line the corridor, representing the Buddha’s auspicious qualities, feels more like an act of vanity than of piety. Adjacent to the building housing the reclining Buddha is a small garden with a bodhi tree, apparently propagated from the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Sri Lanka, itself said to descend from the original Bodhi Tree in India under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. Whether or not wisdom spreads, religious symbolism certainly does. Something I initially thought out of place, a Thai massage center within the complex, turned out, upon further reading, to be the Wat Pho Thai Traditional Medical and Massage School, one of the earliest massage institutions in Thailand. Its teachings are also inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Feet with auspicious symbols of Buddha at Wat Pho (Image courtesy: Mastertongapollo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Outside the sacred spaces of stillness and away from the city’s slick, modern façade, emerges the vibrant hustle of Bangkok’s streets – its narrow sois and hidden troks – where resides its authentic, pulsating heart. The sheer mass of humanity appears to be constantly in motion amidst an intimate, human-scale chaos, spilling horizontally across lanes that barely fit two, and vertically towards the skytrains and skywalks above. The sizzling woks, steaming bowls, and smoky grills are perennially on fire, with a constant slurping and chomping against the backdrop of intense smell hanging in the air – of meat, fish, vinegar, sauces, and often, incense. It’s remarkable that such a large number of humans in such small places rarely descends into a raucous cacophony. Instead, mutual respect subtly prevails, whether on foot or on motorbikes. Further out, on the city’s main arterial roads, luxury cars and tourist buses often queue up in stagnant lanes, while motorbikes, my preferred mode of transport in the perennially stuck traffic, zip past large vehicles as gracefully as water through a sieve.

Like most ancient cities, Bangkok has witnessed the rise and fall of rulers and followers, of souls who lived, breathed, and navigated the Chao Phraya and its canals, now long gone in the cycle of life. It’s also a city that is tirelessly reinventing, while holding on to its profound spiritual and cultural roots. It is a city that defines “stillness in motion.”

In the Shade of Eternity: Sierra Nevada

“There was a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival”

A year before his death at age 36, Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley recorded these lines about African American soldiers who fought in the “Indian Wars” of the 18th and 19th centuries. Depending on which narrative one reads, these wars may either be criticized as the westward expansion of the United States to seize Native lands and relocate tribes to reservations through the “Trail of Tears,” or praised as the pursuit of the “Manifest Destiny” of Americans to spread Christianity and democracy from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. The Buffalo Soldiers (arguably a pejorative) of the U.S. Army—African American regiments who “protected settlers” after the Civil War—were also, interestingly, deployed as the first park rangers in Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks before the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.

The Sierra Nevada (Spanish for “snowy mountains”) in eastern California is essentially a massive granite block roughly 640 km long and 100 km wide, that has been cut, shaped, carved and polished by glaciers and rivers since the Ice Ages. It hosts both Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. Its numerous rivers are primarily fed by snowmelt, cascading into splendid waterfalls across its valleys, peaks, canyons, gorges, meadows, and lakes, making the Sierra a crucial “water tower” for California and neighboring regions. ‘Indian tribes’ (a phrase that always makes me cognitively dissonant as an Indian national) such as the Yokuts, Miwok, and Paiute have lived in this region for at least 1,500 years, until many were pushed off their lands during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s.

The Sierra Nevada range in California (Image courtesy: Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Several ‘attractions’ and trailheads in today’s Sequoia National Park bear the name of one Hale Tharp, a Gold Rush miner who ventured into this area in the hope of making a fortune and settled into cattle ranching. His log cabin and barn are featured as the must-see “Cattle Cabin” in the park’s leaflets, while his dwelling made from a hollowed tree log, judiciously named “Tharp's Log,” is noted as a prominent contribution and a ‘historic site.’ Tharp also appears on information boards at various points in the park, including one at Moro Rock, a granite dome with a 2 km elevation, informing readers about the ‘explorer Tharp,’ who was the first person to ascend this prominent structure in 1861, ‘guided’ by two Indians.

History is written by the victors and is replete with narratives of their grace, legitimacy, and divine favor over so-called rebels and infidels. These labels shift, get rinsed, and are repeated every few hundred years. North Africans enslaved swathes of Christian Europeans across the Mediterranean; the Ottomans did the same with white Europeans from the Balkans; and the Crimeans went in the Russian hinterlands to capture white slaves. Europeans themselves did the same with Africans, turning it into the most profitable business of all. Religion, meanwhile, played a recurring role as the banner of legitimacy in these human pursuits of profit over the few hundred years of written history that we know.

And history is what reverberates as the theme across the enchanted landscape of Sierra Nevada.

“The Sentinel” is a majestic, 2,200-year-old giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest—the most famous and largest grove of these trees in the world. Sequoias are massive, routinely reaching 80–90 meters in height (comparable to a 25-story building), and grow slowly over centuries in ‘rings’ around the existing trunk. These rings archive history like etched grooves on a vinyl record. Each ring in the cross-section of a sequoia trunk, roughly representing a year of growth, can reveal wet and dry years, pest infestations, and occurrences of fire. John Muir, the naturalist credited with the birth of the U.S. National Park system, once described sequoias as “the greatest of living things.” Standing beneath a sequoia that has been alive for two to three millennia silently dwarfs you and your place in the world—physically and existentially.

The Sentinel (Image courtesy: m01229 from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Sentinel began its life around 225 BCE, a time when much of Europe was tribal. Alexander’s vast, hard-won territory from Darius’s Persia had largely disintegrated. The Romans were expanding and consolidating power as a significant force on the Italian peninsula. Mauryan King Ashoka’s vast empire in the Indian peninsula had begun to fragment. The first unification of China under the Qin Dynasty was underway. And amidst all this, religion—the most profitable of human enterprises—had an entirely different fervor. The polytheistic Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were worshipping a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Zoroastrianism was dominant in Persia, while Judaism was just past its early stages. Buddhism, having expanded significantly under Ashoka, was a major force in the East. Classical Hinduism was evolving from its Vedic roots, and the Bhagavad Gita was yet to be composed. The Mayan civilization was just beginning. Christianity and Islam did not yet exist. From its silent perch in a North American forest, unknown to the major powers of that Old World, The Sentinel was witnessing it all—quietly recording history while outliving empires. Standing before such an old tree, with its cinnamon-red bark storing all this history inside, makes you feel insignificant, yet strangely connected to the milieu of life beyond wars and conquests for temporary human dominance over nature. The sequoias’ silence hits you differently; despite their shallow roots and fire-dependent reproduction, they endure—in humbling contrast to human impermanence.

And further back in the arc of history, there are the rivers—the sculptors of Yosemite and Sequoia. Roaring through the canyons, they patiently chiseled the Sierra Nevada’s granite heart over millions of years. The entire range was born of molten magma that cooled and formed the soaring cliffs of Yosemite’s El Capitan and the gorges of the Kaweah. And the handiwork of these rivers resulted in the picturesque waterfalls and canyons we see today. Yosemite hosts the eponymous Yosemite Falls (the tallest in North America), Bridalveil Fall, and Vernal Fall, among many others—each framed by jagged granite cliffs, their mist swaying in the breeze and drenching onlookers. Sequoia features Grizzly Falls and Roaring River Falls, among others, cooling the air, their mist mingling with the scent of wildflowers. Despite the roar—much more pronounced in the spring when flows peak—these falls hold a quiet power, an intimacy with the rocks through which they plummet, thunder, and dissolve time. Occasionally, a double rainbow arches across the spray—a fleeting, timeless crown. In the deep, hardened soul of the granite, it is the rivers that have nurtured diverse ecosystems across the ages. A sign just outside Roaring River Falls reminds us of human fragility in this seemingly eternal world: Do not go near the rocks. People drown in this river every year.

Grizzly Falls in Kings Canyon (Image courtesy: Alexander Migl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Among granite peaks and ancient waters, the wildlife of the Sierra Nevada tells another tale of survival and loss through history. For more than two million years, grizzly bears were the lords of Yosemite and Sequoia, but were driven to extinction in California in less than a century by the traps and rifles of ‘settlers’ in the 19th century. Today, black bears still forage—often struggling futilely with modern bear-proof food storage boxes scattered throughout campgrounds and guest accommodations in the park. There are also mule deer, bighorn sheep, marmots, and even mountain lions and cougars—thankfully difficult to spot for entertainment’s sake in the park’s vast wilderness. Apparently, eleven woodpecker species inhabit this region, and watching one patiently at work on a tall oak tree was a delight.

To a modern-day visitor, Yosemite and Sequoia offer more than a thousand kilometers of marked hiking trails, a highway system with scenic vistas, campgrounds, and comfortable lodging options with reliable internet service—fruits of late-stage capitalism. It’s heartening to see how modern narratives in their visitor centers and information panels do at least partial justice to history, and how conservation programs strive to preserve the beauty and timelessness of this land that vastly predates—and will likely outlast—human stories.

Quoting Bob Marley again:

“If you know your history
Then you would know where you coming from”

On my way back from the Sierra Nevada, with sequoias’ shadows in my rearview, I thought a little about where I came from. And offered a silent prayer—grateful for the providence and amazing fortunes of my life.