Bangkok's Timeless Island by John Borthwick
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With five other riders, I am cruising towards Koh Kret, an island that sits in a kink in the Chao Phraya River just 20 km north of Bangkok’s neutron accelerator CBD. Our guide on this easy, one-day ride (operated by Spice Roads cycle touring company) is a smart young Thai called Moh who makes sure we’re saddled-up just right before she leads us towards our first stop, Wat Toae, a Buddhist temple whose golden cheddi spires overlook the restless river. The ancient monks clearly had a realtor’s eye for “position, position, position” because some of the best land along the riverfront is occupied by wats.
At another temple, Wat Klang Kret we briefly pay respects to its golden Reclining Buddha before heading to a nearby pier. We wheel our bikes onto the little ferry that chugs across the Chao Phraya River and minutes later step ashore on Koh Kret in the province of Nonthaburi. This river-moated island is that very rare thing, an entirely car-free place. In 1722 the island was cut from an ox-bow bend in the river and became a refuge to the Mon tribes who once dominated Thailand. They retained here their distinct identity, while becoming potters renowned for their terracotta and earthenware vessels.
Some 1500 Mon live on the island in seven villages where the housing ranges from wooden shacks to substantial homes shaded by palm trees and blessed by ramshackle temples. No one has far to go to work. Some twenty pottery workshops are dotted around the island, producing works in kwan raman, an unglazed red-black clay that is sometimes carved with intricate patterns. Moh halts us at one and we duck into a family pottery gallery to watch a sculptor, Khun Tanong Chai Mahi carve a complex mythological scene onto a large earthenware pot. He tells us that it will take at least two weeks to finish the work, after which the pot may crack when fired in the kiln. “What do you do if that happens?” I ask. He sighs, “I stare at the sky for about two hours, then start again.”
We are here mid-week and the island’s narrow paths are uncrowded. I slalom around occasional pushcarts and motorcycles as we cruise along concrete causeways built above the tidal flats, with jungle to the left, hamlets to the right and mangroves all around. Our next stop is a typical pottery factory where piece workers are busy “throwing” identical pots on wheels. I am astonished by the uniformity of the results and the pace at which the men produce them. Meanwhile, other workers pack the trays of fresh pots into arched, brick ovens known as “turtleback kilns”.
My fellow cyclists are shoppers and soon their backpacks are stuffed with bowls, platters and figurines of frogs and Buddhas. We pedal on, stopping for lunch and later, at the island’s main temple Wat Poramai Yikawat, for Mon snacks. The wat itself is 200 years old and features murals and fine stuccowork, but it’s the food that Thai visitors are lining up for. We join them for khao cher (rice served with fragrant rosewater and side dishes) and a unique Thai tempura, dokmai thood — deep fried morning glory flowers.
We’re soon keen to get back in the saddle. Weaving past Mon houses, paddies, orchards, flowerbeds, potteries and galleries, we reach the northernmost tip of the little island. The temperature is wok-hot, even out here in the middle the river, so we take a breather at a small pagoda that thrusts into the Chao Phraya’s current, splitting it like a ship’s prow. The ancient structure, marzipanned with decades of whitewash, sags precariously towards the river, “melting like a chocolate in the sun,” as one rider observes. I know how it feels. Soon revived, however, we plunge back into this timeless, two-wheeled island. Lacking cars, bars, taxis, malls and tuk-tuks, Koh Kret feels like Bangkok’s version of Brigadoon.