Khlong Saen Saep (คลองแสนแสบ)
Dug for a war. In December 1837 Rama III ordered a straight water road east – Siam was fighting Vietnam over Cambodia, and troops, cannon and rice had to reach the front without going round by sea. Muslim and Chinese labourers dug 53 kilometres in three years for 96,000 baht, and when the work was done, many of the diggers settled along the banks.
The name – Saen Saep (แสนแสบ ) – means a hundred thousand stings. The mosquitoes that tormented the diggers get the official blame; these days the smell does the stinging.
The boats came late – 1 October 1990, a private company’s answer to the traffic above. Around a hundred of them, up to 60,000 riders a day at the peak, the fare tied to diesel, the conductor collecting it while walking the outside of the hull on a ten-centimetre gunwale. The plastic curtains are for the wake of the boat coming the other way.
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