Overnight on the Chao Phraya RiverPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Let’s suppose you’ve seen all the sights and your shopping is over. The pressure is off. Now what you need is a little rest, to get away. No phone calls, no schedules. A chance to relax, maybe even catch up on your reading. Where can you do all this, without having to hop on a jet and wing off to some isolated destination?
Simple, take an overnight cruise on the River of Kings, aboard a rice barge. Sounds ridiculous, a rice barge? Not really! There are a number of converted rice barges that ply the river, some associated with hotels and restaurants and others privately owned. Take a look at the advertisement for river cruises on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok—Horizon; Chao Phraya Princess; River Sun Cruise; River King Cruise; Jak Jaew Boat; Grand Pearl; and others. It’s the others here that I want to tell you about, and these are Manohra Song and Mekhala. Both are listed with Royal Orchid Holidays Programmes. But first, to give you an idea what an overnight cruise might be like, let me tell you about a cruise that I took on the Manohra Song. It comes from a chapter in my book, Your Guide to the River of Kings.
I don’t know all of these barges but I do know one, Manohra Song, so let me take you aboard for an overnight cruise and then you be the judge.
I signed up for the cruise aboard Manohra Song, not knowing what to expect. I had just completed a manuscript for a book and needed a few days to unwind. For my reading, I took along a copy of Joseph Conrad’s The Shadow Line, a book I had wanted to reread for a long time.
Manohra Song is hardly what one might expect for a rice barge. You see these old teak barges being towed up and down the river, strings of them, linked together like elephants in a circus holding tails. Some barges are quite ancient but obviously very serviceable. They seem to go on and on forever and they do add colour to the river.
The Manohra Song might well have suffered a similar fate had not Bill Heinecke, CEO of the Marriott Royal Garden, his brother Skip, an executive with the hotel group, and Skip’s wife Kathleen appeared on the scene. The Royal Garden had already converted a slightly smaller barge for dining and cocktail cruising, the Manohra, but it wasn’t suitable for overnight voyages.
Manohra Song’s hull was converted in a Bangkok shipyard by master craftsmen using centuries-old skills. The project was financed by Bill Heinecke personally. Skip, a seasoned yachtsman himself, provided the concept and Kathleen did the beautiful decorating inside and out.
The result was worth the effort—a16-meter-long barge with the lines of those barges we see in old photographs but with all the amenities inside of a luxury yacht.
Joseph Conrad never had it so grand when he came upriver. I thought about him when I was greeted at the landing by the chief steward who was dressed in a white jacket. He saluted, stepped aside and pointed my way aboard. A stairway led to an upper deck and here the crew was waiting, the captain, the steward’s assistants and others, all who gave me snappy salutes. It was a strange feeling. That morning I had begun reading Conrad, now tucked under my arm, and I could swear the pages of the book were coming to life. Lines from the book echoed through my mind: “This Oriental kingdom,” Conrad wrote, “ far up a river like London is our Thames—” I was afraid if someone pinched me it might all come to an end and I’d be sitting back in my study at home reading.
But this was real enough, except unlike what Joseph Conrad had to endure aboard his sailing ship, Manohra Song was rebuilt for comfort.
The upper deck, open on the sides, serves as the main saloon with both a dining and living area. The helmsman sits forward. To the aft is a sundeck with reclining deck chairs.
I followed the steward to my cabin below deck. Manohra Song was designed to accommodate up to four couples, with comfort that Joseph Conrad could never have imagined possible. No more hot, stuffy cabins below deck.
Back on deck, I was handed a drink, the mooring lines were cast off and we drifted away from the dock with the current. Unlike the old rice barges that plied the river and had to be towed, Manohra Song has two powerful diesel engines to propel her up the river against a swift current when the tide is ebbing. Yet, even with engines running, so silently does she move through the water that there is hardly a sound.
Manohra Song left the pier in mid afternoon and began her slow journey up river. While the other passengers lounged on the sundeck, I sat at a table by the railing, where I could read and study the river. There was a pleasant breeze and the yellow Manohra Song flag fluttered in the wind. We were retracing Conrad’s steps. We sailed past the Shangri-La Hotel and then the Oriental Hotel, where Conrad had anchored “slightly up river” when he took command of Otega. Waiters served afternoon coffee as we glided past Wat Arun. It seemed like we were sailing not only forward over leagues of water but backward in time.
The river is more active during weekdays than on weekends. Boats of every description work the waterway—rice barges, ferries crossing from one side to the other, government launches, long-tail skiffs speeding up and down river, express boats perhaps a hundred feet long, hotel cruise boats, tiny sampans sculling across the river, and ever so many more.
Every barge on the river has a name. Manohra Song was christened after a graceful half-bird, half-female creature in Thai mythology. Song in Thai means two so that Manohra Song is the second barge in the fleet. The owners decided to embark on something far more elaborate, surpass anything else on the Chao Phraya, when they built Half Bird Two.
The river is timeless. Among the low, clapboard houses, there rise golden temples with their pointed, sloped roofs and carved Nagas reaching skyward. Temples sparkle in the bright sun light. They actually dazzle.
We passed rafts of teak logs floating to saw mills down river and, every few hundred meters, small, narrow klongs empty into the river. New temples under construction appeared every now and then. Occasionally a mosque appeared, or a towered church. Boatmen waved to one another as they passed on the river.
No longer do larger ships come up river. The construction of bridges ended that. But one can’t help imagining the sailing junks and square riggers flying the colors of a hundred nations that once made their way up to Ayutthaya. This once grand city, before being sacked by the Burmese, was bigger than Venice and Genoa in its time.
As we approached a bridge, I noticed a fisherman standing on the concrete piling. He was in shorts and was deeply tanned. I watched him cast his fishing line, with one hand, into the current and with his other hand he held a cellular phone. Progress.
Manohra Song slowed almost to crawl. It was all peace now. We were served hors d’oeuvres: shrimps and caviar. The tide was coming in and tugs and barges were moored along the banks of the river, waiting for the tide to ebb. It was dusk and evening time is when Thais light fires along the shore among their houses to drive away mosquitoes. Their columns of smoke give the river a surrealistic appearance. People bath in the river, sluicing themselves with water.
The sun was beginning to set and evening shadows were long and soft and there was not the harsh glare of the tropical downpour of sunlight that you find at noon. We slowly pushed on and the only rocking movement that we encountered was when another boat passed.
Manohra Song came to a halt and moored to a quay in front of a magnificent temple. Monks in saffron robes lined the railing along the seawall. The crew connected a cable to shore and we now had shore power. The engines were turned off and it became deadly quiet. We spent the night here. A red glow from the setting sun made the river appear to be on fire. Lights from lamps along the banks cast their reflection upon the still water. From a temple in the distance I could hear monks chanting.
We had dinner on deck and waiters went about setting the tables. Couples sat together in elegant wicker chairs at tables smothered in pink orchids, with hanging lanterns overhead. I dined at my table alone, at my request. The table was immaculately set, with white cloth and white napkins. Three beautiful orchids, a myriad of colours, were set in a vase in the middle of the table. The waiter moved the vase aside and began serving dinner. The meal was Thai cuisine, catered from the Marriott Hotel, and served by boatmen in white coats and sarongs. Coils were lit to keep mosquitoes at bay. I thought of Conrad again; he had no such meals aboard Otega.
I retired to my room to read before turning in.
I went on deck early the next morning and had a hot coffee while sitting in a wicker chair by the railing. There was a morning mist that hung over the river and it was deathly still. The only sounds were the monks chanting in the distance. The silence was broken by the din of a motor that grew louder. A long-tail boat passed and it was quiet again. I was served an American breakfast with fresh juice, fried eggs, toast, and more hot coffee. We resumed our voyage.
Temples, it seemed, became more spectacular, their Nagas reaching for the sky. Ahead was a cluster of tall trees that were abloom in tiers of white flowers. There were literally thousands. Then, as we sailed closer, I saw that they were birds nesting in the branches.
The river became so wide now I could not see across. There were no signs, no billboards, no markings. We came to a lighthouse in disuse and made a turn to starboard and here we moored to a pier. A car was waiting to take passengers on a tour of Ayutthaya and back to Bangkok, 65 km away. I elected to stay aboard and return to Bangkok abroad ship.
As we neared the Oriental Hotel, on our return down river, I was reminded of Conrad again. In The Shadow Line he tells us that once his crew had recovered, he found a pilot to lead them across the bar at the mouth of the river and set sail. When the Otega slipped past the Oriental, Conrad and his crew waved to the early-risen guests who sat in cane chairs on the lawn. It wasn’t early morning when the Manohra Song slipped past the Oriental but, nevertheless, we too waved to all the people on the terrace of the hotel and they waved back. What a proud feeling. The River of Kings can do wondrous things to you, especially aboard a converted rice barge like Manohra Song.
That is my tale about an overnight cruise on the River of Kings but it’s not the end of the story. The Marriott Royal Garden now has a second, converted rice barge, Manohra Dream, even more spacious and more exclusive than the existing Manohra Song. Two staterooms, measuring between 20–25 square metres in area, are fully air-conditioned and have bathrooms with full showers. The beds (no bunks here) are two metres-square and king-sized. Guests have a choice of two itineraries, exploring the River of Kings, the “Thousand Golden Temples Tour to Ayutthaya” and the “Mystic River Tour to Angthong.”
And there is even more. Would you believe, you can even sign up for cooking classes aboard the Manohra vessels? Conrad never had that.
Next week I am changing pace and taking readers to Koh Samui, not to the beaches and resorts but into the hills on a four-wheel drive trip.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Q. Dear Harold Stephens. Please let your readers know that in order to visit the Oriental Hotel you must wear smart casual ie trousers and collared shirt for men and skirts and blouses for ladies, no beach wear is allowed ie shorts etc no matter how smart.
Other than that your column is great and was very helpful when visiting Bangkok recently. —Cath Moore, Sydney
A. Dear Cath, Thank you for your comment, and I will pass on the information to readers. One of the problems many major hotels have is insuring that their guests are properly dressed. Many travellers feel that since they are on vacation it is their chance to dress as the please. Perhaps, but consideration should be given to other guests. Also, improper dress is disrespect to the host country foreign travellers are visiting. Ride the Skytrain in Bangkok and notice how well dressed the Thais are. Neat and clean is their moto. Respect is a major trait of the Thai people. They respect not only one another but their traditions and culture. I often tell people when they are visiting Bangkok notice that there is no graffiti. The Thais do not disfigure their public places. There are no laws, no fines, no notices but by their very nature they would not mark public places. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited.
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