Candace Rose Rardon: Savoring Thailand’s Treasures on Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River

23 Aug Candace Rose Rardon: Savoring Thailand’s Treasures on Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River

Candace Rose Rardon is an American writer, photographer and artist who sketches as she travels. These sketches, combined with the stories behind them, poignantly portray those moments of encounter and illumination that become the stepping stones of adventure, inner and outer. We are extremely pleased to present her on-the-road sketches-and-stories here.

On a steamy Sunday afternoon in Bangkok, I board a long wooden tourist boat, bound for Wat Arun. Situated on a riverbank opposite the Grand Palace, the temple dates to the 17th century and was at one point part of the royal grounds – and it is Wat Arun that I intend to sketch today, my last full day before leaving Asia.

We pull away from the dock, the boat slowly gaining speed and the conductor’s change box jingling as she walks up and down the aisle, collecting our fares. I have just leaned back in my seat, my eyes half-closed as the Chao Phraya River flows beneath us, when a small mosque appears to the left.

All I can really see are its gold-tipped, forest green dome and white minaret, but the sight of the two speakers attached to it instantly conjures the call to prayer in my mind. Not two minutes later we pass a large white stupa, and then a church. It has an octagonal bell tower, dusky rose cupola, and metal cross at the top, so small from this distance.
It feels almost like a procession of world religions, each place of worship so representative of the faith it is home to – only it is we who move past them, the buildings themselves remaining stationary along the water.

By the time we dock at Tha Tien pier, where I could then take another boat across the river to Wat Arun, my plan has changed. To sketch just one temple would be to see the city – indeed, this entire continent – through too narrow a viewpoint. The minaret may now be out of sight, but still I have to sketch the other peaks in this skyline: the stupa, the cupola, and Wat Arun’s glistening porcelain prang (or spires).

Soon I will be on a plane bound for home, but for the moment, here on the banks of the Chao Phraya, I delight in the kaleidoscope that is life in Asia – ever-shifting, all-encompassing, forever inspiring.

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Don George

Don George is the Adventure Collection’s Web Editor in Chief. A highly respected and pioneering travel journalist for more than three decades, Don is the author of "The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George," and of "Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Writing." Don is currently Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler and Special Features Editor for BBC Travel. He has also been Global Travel Editor for Lonely Planet Publications, Travel Editor at the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, and founder and editor of Salon.com’s travel site, Wanderlust. In addition to authoring two books, Don has edited ten literary travel anthologies, including “The Kindness of Strangers,” “An Innocent Abroad," and "Better Than Fiction." He has won numerous awards for his writing and editing, and he speaks, teaches, and consults at campuses, conferences, and corporations around the world.

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