The Chao Phraya River is the largest river in Thailand. Like all urban rivers, the Chao Phraya River has been fashioned after the city that it runs through. In this case, traveling along the Chao Phraya River will allow you to get a vision of present day Bangkok.

The visions that I saw was that it is a river of contrasts. In the late evening and in the early morning the river is calm but during the day it is chaotic. The daily activities are a mix of religious and secular. The architecture is a contrast of modern and traditional. The Thai culture is predominant but there is a foreign influence that can’t be missed.

King Rama I named the Chao Phraya the “River of Kings” and today it is still the lifeblood of Bangkok. The first thing that you will notice about the Chao Phraya is the vast amount of boat traffic going in almost every direction. Around 50,000 people use the river ferries for their transportation every day.

Taking a closer look at the boats passing by you will see that all of the boats have colorful decorations on the front. Many boats will have flowers and others will have colorful fabrics. The decorations on the front of Thai boats is to pay respect to “Mae Yanang”, the Goddess of travel. By paying respect to Mae Yanang, passengers on a boat can expect her protection and be assured a safe journey.

Other than the fast moving taxis, there is a variety of personal boats and slow moving barges carrying cargo that are being towed up river by tug boats.

Looking down from above, the river seems to be dominated by modern high rises but from the river level the contrast of modern and traditional is very evident. The photos below are several views that shows the city with the Chao Phraya River running through the heart of the city.

Bangkok truly does have its share of modern buildings and many of them are along the Chao Phraya River. The following photos show a few of these buildings.

Although Bangkok has its modern side, the traditional side of Bangkok can’t be missed. It is displayed everywhere that you look including along the banks of the Chao Phraya River. The traditional side is a mixture of traditional Thailand architecture and religious structures. The next group of photos is an example of traditional side of Bangkok that can be seen while traveling on the Chao Phraya River.

When a major river divides a major city like the Chao Phraya River divides Bangkok, there will be bridges that enable traffic to cross the river. Bangkok has many bridges. Some of these bridges are beautiful and add to the architecture of the city and others are intended more for functionality. Both of these types of bridges are shown below (Note: The first 2 photos are of the  Rama VIII Bridge  and I have dedicated an earlier post to this bridge and it can be seen by clicking on the photo at the end of this post).

When I travel I always photograph things that I find interesting. When traveling along the Chao Phraya River there was no shortage of things that I found interesting. The last set of photos are miscellaneous photos of thing that caught my attention. I wanted to include them just to provide an idea of the variety of things that can be seen on a trip on the Chao Phraya River.

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