Wednesday Walk: a visit at the temple to look for the old coffee shop.

A few years ago, I found a very nice restaurant opposite Wat Samphraya ( Samphraya temple) by chance. It was a very hot day and I needed some ice cream to cool myself down. So, I just walked along the side street and found a tiny house with customers enjoying their food and snacks inside. I was quite impressed by this little restaurant whose owners were from the south of Thailand. So, the food there was very spicy and too hot for me. However, the cakes there were fabulous as these were home made with best ingredients. I longed to have some double chocolate cakes with a big cup of coffee. So, I made my brief visit to the temple to to check out the tall trees which have grown tangling around the electricity pole. I had informed a monk about this and suggested that a proper trimming was needed before the monsoon storms.

Poster to congratulate all the monks who had passed their exams!

The rain has made all the trees growing much bigger and greener. Gray clouds were hanging over my head warning me I had better walked faster. I checked out those trees which seemed to have been trimmed; the old pond still needed some attention and renovation. Unfortunately, most monks there didn’t have any inclination for gardening nor any gardening skills. The funny thing was that most monks were from the countryside; becoming monks offered them free education and future career when they decided to become laypeople.

These country youngsters grew up with wooded trees so they took them for granted. The burden of having to sweep all the fallen leaves had put them off from gardening. That’s probably why we only heard the news of poor country people got arrested for cutting down trees for rich buyers and exporters of hard wood to Chinese customers. These monks’ curriculum should have some knowledge on the ecology of the forests and importance of preserving hard wood trees in the forests. I checked out the five small plants I had given to a monk hoping that they would become useful as herbal remedy in the future. I could see that life would become very tough next year when most jabbed monks would start to fall ill, and medical support would be hard to come by as the whole health care system would be overworked.

The atmosphere in the temple was still very sleepy and inactive as monks were still very cautious to gather in the main hall. I noted all the changes over the last two years and resigned to the changing reality with melancholy. The coffee shop should be somewhere further down the road. I had noticed details which I had never seen before. This area used to be a very posh location full of people who worked at the Royal Palace as cooks, craftsmen, musicians, flower arrangers and civil servants. The travel by carriage would take less than ten minutes to reach the Royal Palace. So, this Banglumpoo area was the oldest and poshest residential area in old Siam.

That’s probably why there was an old Thai music and dance school at the main road. I used to see old looking shops selling paper flowers for funeral ceremonies. Since the overthrowing of the monarchy, Siamese society had been through shocking changes for those simple generations who would never understand what had happened to their beloved Monarchy and secured lifestyles. These people had to fend for themselves outside Royal patronage and tried to survive the best they could. Suddenly, they became homeless without any professions or occupations. I heard many sad stories from some elderly people many years ago; some young girls had to go into prostitution.

I could see some remnants of the old livelihood of older generations along this road. The cooking school was probably an inheritance from older people who used to be cooks in the Royal Palace. My mother used to take me shopping for special sweets and snacks made by people who learned these recipes while working inside the Palace. There used to be a shop selling only curry pastes; but there were over twenty kinds of curry pastes in that shop. Special summer fragrant rice dish would be available only during the summer months; this was a very complicated set of rice with condiments available only in Palaces. The recipe used to be a well kept secret within each family. I used to be treated to such a fragrant rice set by my friends’ great grandmother who was the head of the kitchen in the Palace.

Walking around this old temple always transported me back to the past. I could hear the horse drawn carriages of the rich people while most people would travel along the small canals in their rowing boats. Younger generations who weren’t interested in the old history wouldn’t realise that most of the roads in Bangkok were originally canals and rivers. Most houses would be facing the canals with piers and rowing boats tied to the poles of the piers. Very rich people could afford to keep horses and carriages. Later these were changed to motor cars. The next generation would probably all have Tesla cars, provided that we wouldn’t have to experience a world war.

I found the small coffee shop with most more plants around the entrance. But I was too late; the shop was already closed and there was no one inside. I missed my chocolate cake and coffee. The shop was open for a few hours during lunchtime to service the employees from the Bank of Thailand which situated at the crossroads. The staff were completely exhausted after lunchtime; I used to meet an old friend who worked at the bank there years ago. I did wonder how high up on his career path he has achieved these days; he’s an Oxford student so he should do very well. But he wouldn’t recognise me as I have transformed into a gardener. It would be nice to run into him one more time.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.

#wednesdaywalk by @tattoodjay