New Bangkok Subway Means The End For Klong Boats

[george]

New Bangkok subway means the end for klong boats

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's traditional wooden canal boats, which centuries ago helped earn Bangkok the name of "Venice of the East," face a watery grave as the city's ultra-modern new subway lures away commuters, some boat owners say.

For years, tens of thousands of Bangkok residents daily braved the pollution, disease and other hazards of the city's murky waterways to save minutes, mostly hours, off their travel to work by using the Thai longboats.

But the multi-billion dollar subway, inaugurated by Thailand's king just last month, promises to shift the transport landscape for Bangkok, which already has the unenviable reputation as one of the worst traffic gridlocks in the world. The canal boats are unlikely to be spared in this reshuffle.

Like relics from a bygone era, the fast narrow boats shuttle through Bangkok's narrow canals, called klongs in Thai. But while many cling proudly to Thailand's past, the future has caught up with the Thai Kingdom as Bangkok, a city of 10 million inhabitants will soon see its treasured klong boats disappear forever.

My business will not last long, maybe five or six years, says Chavalit Methayaprapas, owner of the Transportation Family Company, the only firm licensed to operate the klong service over the past 15 years.

The Thai government will extend its subway service to Bang Kapi (Bangkok's eastern suburb) and then I think our passengers will turn to the new subway system, Chavalit said. But our company will survive as I plan to do boat tours for tourists on the Chao Phraya River, he added.

Many boat line employees and riders on Klong Saen Saep, the main route, say they have yet to see a decline in commuter passengers, but some concede the exodus has already begun. One klong boat pilot said he estimated a 20% drop in passengers since he joined the company 8 years ago.

The boat pilots are hardened workers, navigating treacherous turns and choppy waters at very high speeds while dodging construction pylons, low bridges and other klong boats. Yet many Thai commuters swear by the boats. It's super fast and super cheap. They should continue to run the service for years, says Pipat Wongsophonpattana, a 24-year-old office worker. The fare is a maximum 15 baht (US$ 0,35) and rush hour boats pull up to the piers at a 1 minute interval.

Yet not every Bangkok resident is a fan of the klong transport. It smelled like a sewage pit, the boats barely stop at the piers and you have to be a stuntman to leap into the craft, says Karishma Vyas, who used to take the bus to work but switched to klong boats because they are much faster. It saves me an enormous amount of time, but when I got to work I smell like I have not taken a shower for months and the boat pilots navigate like kamikazes.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, which is in negotiations to buy back the city's Skytrain and the subway from their operators, stresses klong transport is still very much a part of city life in Bangkok. The government has no desire to see the klong boat service come to an end, Harbor Department pier security official Kiatisak Klinbua says.

Bangkok is in desperate need of more mass transport options on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya, where road gridlock is notoriously bad but the Skytrain and subway have yet to penetrate. Changes are on the drawing board. The subway is due for a 72-kilometre (45-mile) expansion by 2010 which will include the densely populated area around the Grand Palace where several tourist sites are located.

The subways governor, Prapat Chongsanguan, says that by the year 2010 about 1.8 million people will be riding the Bangkok subway every day, and refuted charges that the Bangkok underground would drive the traditional klong boats out of business.

--Yahoo News 2004-08-20

[george]

Bangkok's waterways disappear amid filth

BANGKOK: -- Along the banks of the canal, women in rowboats grill fish and sell fresh bananas. Families eat on floating pavilions, rocked gently by waves from passing boats.

"We take fruit from the trees nearby, and we make food and sell that," said Toi Sattikorn, 52, turning skewers on the small grill in the center of her rowboat.

A century ago, most Bangkok people were like Toi -- relying for their livelihood on rivers and the canals known as klongs. But as Bangkok has grown, the old ways have faded, and the klongs have fallen victim to haphazard development and pollution.

In 1950, Bangkok's 1 million people had nearly 100 major, navigable klongs. Now the population is 10 times bigger and more than half of the canals have been filled in for roads and buildings.

"With the road networks, you've lost a lot of the floating markets," said Georgi Marshall, 26, who works with Magic Eyes, a conservation group that focuses on Thai waterways. "You used to have canoes and boats. Now you have a corner store with Pepsi."

The changes have affected more than the merchants along the canals. Houses, once constructed to face the water, now turn their backs, opening onto alleys instead.

Bangkok's population boom and the reduction in waterways taxed the remaining canals, filling many of them with sewage and making them unsuitable for anything but transportation.

People who once used canal water every day will now hardly touch it.

"When I was younger, we could play in the water," said Maranee Wongsongkorm, 49, who runs a food stall near a canal. "Before, we could fish. Now we can't."

More than 20,000 people a day ride the water taxis on the canals, mostly to beat Bangkok's notorious land traffic. But they are careful not to get wet.

"If we sit in the center, you don't get splashed," advised Kittipong Luynikai, 31, who commutes by canal to his job at a cell phone company.

If the city wants to preserve the canals, it must first deal with the pollution, said Siriwan Silapacharanan, an urban planning professor who has advised several of the districts on revitalizing their canals.

"In the suburbs, where the water quality is better, people can build walkways and have more life along the canals," she said. "But in the inner city, it is too late. We have to wait until the wastewater system starts to be implemented."

Bangkok began constructing large water treatment plants in the early 1990s, but Siriwan said it will be at least five years before water quality improves.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the city plans favored roads over canals. Laws now limit construction along canals, but little can be done about existing buildings, Siriwan said.

Some outlying districts, such as Taling Chan, have revitalized floating markets and built walkways along the canal, said Siriwan. Five years ago, the government built pavilions on the canal in Taling Chan to function as floating restaurants served by rowboats.

Other neighborhoods have worked with universities and environmental groups to educate residents about pollution and organize clean-up days.

"There's a chance of improving, and I don't want to say we just have to accept things as they are," said Marshall. "People picture a klong as a black, smelly place, but we need to remember that people used to live on these."

--L.A. Daily News 2004-08-21

[numpty]

i used to use the klong ferry when i lived on lad pla keow (sp) near soi sena. the scenery was almost rural all very pleasant - if you could inure yourself to the noise and the turgid black mess outside...

[Up2U]

Different Headlines.

'Subway numbers drop as fares go up'

'Subway means end of alternative transport'

Doom and gloom sells newspapers. Facts don't.

[Harry Palmer]

good riddance to the smelly klongs... they have been slowly draining & building on em' for years. lets get with the 21st century.. use the subway

[otherstuff1957]

I commuted on the Klong Saen Seb ferry boats for a few months when I was working out on New Pechaburi Road. When I commuted by bus I would spend one hour or more getting to or from work. A taxi was more comfortable, but no faster. Commuting by boat took about 1/2 an hour - 10 minutes on the boat and 20 minutes taking a bus to the boat - and even at rush hour there are no traffic jams on the water!

More recently we bought some property in Bang Kroui-Nonthaburi. You can reach it from downtown Nonthaburi by ferry and songtail - about 20 minutes, or by longtail boat - about 12 minutes.

I, for one, will miss the Klong boats if they do vanish. They work very well.

[ovenman]

An article in the Bangkok Post over this past weekend suggests that the death notice for the klong boats may be a bit premature. Apparently, Mr. Big is in favour of the boat trasnsportation network, would like to expand the service to some degree and in the process of doing so clean up some of the canals such as Saen Saeb.

[Up2U]

An article in the Bangkok Post over this past weekend suggests that the death notice for the klong boats may be a bit premature. Apparently, Mr. Big is in favour of the boat trasnsportation network, would like to expand the service to some degree and in the process of doing so clean up some of the canals such as Saen Saeb.

'Cleaning up' from sewage and garbage needs investment in infrastructure and education of the people. I believe both are being considered and, indeed, some actions have been taken with regard to sewage treatment.

But there is also the considerable flow of pollutants from up-stream Chao Phraya that can find it's way into tributary waterways. In London the Thames has become much cleaner over the past fifty years, due to actions taken along the entire length of the river, not just the London section.

This is a national concern as well as a BKK concern and needs national co-ordinated action if things are to get better.

(And for the Mekhong - needs international action from China to maintain a usable waterway for the whole of SE Asia.)