Wireless road was one of the oldest road in Bangkok where old big trees (older than a hundred years ago) could still be seen. During years, several trees had died so they had to be replaced. During a windy storm years ago, big branches broke off and fell on top of passing cars. So, the local authority had begun to take care of these trees.
But the workers were mostly poorly educated and had no training on how to trim branches and keep the trees in good shape. So, one year these eager workers managed to blotch the beauty of this road by chopping branches which seemed to be spreading too much. The result caused an uproar among well off residents and frequent travelers along this road. The chief of the metropolitan authority were in bad troubles as influential people join in the failure of the local authority. It was like opening a can of worms concerning the neglect and incompetence of the high level managers.
People would be surprised that most people didn’t have basic knowledge about trees and how importance they were to our well being. Even local villagers relied on their limited experience and had not been trained by local officers on how to use new techniques to improve the soil and their crops. Several well educated people who were knowledgeable about the correct ways to prune big trees had offered to give lectures to the workers. From then on, the local authority had to have experts in garden design to supervise the cutting of branches of tgese old trees.
Over eighty years ago, there were canals along both sides of the road. All the houses front porches would be facing the canals with rowing boats lining along the small private piers. Rowing around in small boats was the common transportation in Bangkok over a hundred years ago. Only the very high ranking people with lots of wealth could afford to keep elephants and horses for personal transportation. The rich people would have big steamed boats or long boats with rowers. King Rama V used to visit the countryside in disgiuse as a merchant. He had a medium size rowing boat and seceral small long boats with the entourage.
After constructing the first few roads in Bangkok, things took an unstoppable momentum towards the death of old ways of transportation. New road and Wireless road were among the first roads built in Bangkok as these locations were densely populated by foreigner diplomats and businesses. The demise of canals started in tandem with horse draw carriages, steamboats and electric cars. Nowadays, the super rich have private plabes, jets and helicopters. In the future, they would have driverless cars and personal drones for short trips to exclusive restaurants.
The price of land in Wireless road is the most expensive in Bangkok. So, if you have an address in this road, it meant you belong to the exclusive club of the wealthy class. But the traffic jam along this road is so atrocious that I would take a bus instead of driving my car to my favourite coffee shop around here. I liked to walk along some parts of this road just to observe changes over the years. I used to drive down this road during the plandemic years when the road was quite empty of traffic. The atmosphere was quite strange and forlorn in those days as if some aliens had sucked up all the cars. It was nice to drive slowly while looking at all those big trees.
Things have shifted back to more lively pace with more tourists in this area and traffic jams have returned. But the prices of coffee and cakes in my favourite ciffee shop have soared by 20% at least. This place also has a restaurant offering customers with menus according to blood types. There’s also a wide choice of vegetarian and vegan foods. All the vegetables are organically grown in the garden of the owners in their resort on mountainous areas two hours’ drive away from Bangkok. So, when I became exhausted from my short walk, I could drop into my favourite coffee shop for apple pie and cappuccino!
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
(This post was started 4 days ago, but pressing gardening work had kept me busy.)
Stay strong and cheerful.
#wednesdaywalk hosted by @tattoodjay
Quite interesting indeed. I can imagine 100 years ago how different my grandparents' life would be. I wish I could get a glimpse.
In the past everyone had a small rowing boat like kids having their bicycles. People either walked or rowed their boats. The Chinese immigrants would offer rickshaw service. Your grandparents’ house would have big water jars around the house to collect rain water. My Thai grandmother had over twenty big jars to collect rainwater. Tap water was available widely less than sixty years ago! People used to bath in rivers and canals!
That is so interesting. I wish I cold go back in time.
Years ago I went to a couple of receptions at the British embassy on Wireless Road. A lovely place with great gardens like an oasis. As I'm sure you know, a few years ago they sold most of it for an enormous profit!
Yup! The British government did make a huge sum of profit! We used to go there once a year for a big party for alumni. The garden was nice and the residence very homely. There were lots of alcoholic drinks and plenty of food! I did miss the fish and chips!
The city's architecture is so beautiful. I would not like to be in such heavy traffic to go somewhere. I like living where life is a much slower lifestyle. It amazes me that so many cities around the world are so heavily populated. The intense energy alone would probably be unsettling for many. Hope all is well with you. ♥
Thank you very much for your kind thoughts. I have been working too hard in the garden and on repairing project for the road in front of the house. The heat really got me quite exhausted! It’s hard physical work for four days. Now my body needs a good rest. Things just have their own momentum do I had to follow the flows.
Wireless road is really boring during peak traffic hours. Too many skyscrapers in this area which means office workers and lots of cars! The weekends are more pleasant for walking and driving around. The crowds were at the luxurious shopping centers nearby. The atmosphere has improved a lot since the long lockdown.
I can only imagine how exhausting it must be to clean up and repair all the damage from the flood. I had that happen to me once when I was just married over 50 years ago. A canal I lived next too broke and flooded the entire area for miles. It was a nightmare cleaning up all the soot from the dirt and trying to salvage anything left. So, I can relate to your hardships and hope you can manage it all. I think of you often each week wondering how you are handling it all. Much love, peace, and prosperity to you and all your plants. ♥
Thank you very much for your kindness. I am much luckier than many people in other areas. Today, my gardener told me about all the dead fruit trees. We lost many fruit trees so I now know what kind of fruit trees don’t like water too much. All three avocado trees were gone!
A few lemon trees, and six coconut trees, etc.
But these trees could be replaced in a few months. This has been a learning process.
The three water pumps could be successfully repaired! That was good and saved me a lot of money. I had three helpers to help clearing the soot and mud from all the cupboards downstairs. Several pot plants just disappeared with the flowing floodwaters.
The main cost was the hiring of tractor to sweep away all the sticky mud from the dirt road. We needed several truckloads of red earth to repair the road. Then, I decided to make an exit way to the riverfront. That involved more truckloads of dark soil and red earth (with sticky pebbles) to build a road up the slope towards the riverfront road. This was an investment for future uncertainty. It would make traveling in rainy season much safer as the dirt road would become very muddy. My gardener was very pleased with my decision. I will have to sell some crypto this month!
Thank you very much for sending me good vibes. The last two weeks had been very heavy and a bit dark mentally. I could sense lots of bad things in the future which troubled my mind for a while.
So far, my intuition has been proven correct after all the incidents did take place. It isn’t a good idea to have psychic ability sometimes.
Hope you’ll have a wonderful time harvesting vegetables and preserving the produce. 🙏💐
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Thanks so much for the information.
Have a nice weekend.
Awesome job @kaminchan! Keep pushing yourself and you'll reach your Hive goals before you know it.