Ayuthaya, 90 km north of Bangkok, is an island surrounded by other islands created a vast wed of intersecting canals and streams. The low-lying land ideally suited to rice cultivation, was not vary hospitable ta a road system, especially during the rainy season when the land flooded and isolated people in their stilt house. The only logical means of transport was the boat.
Early foreign visitors commented on how at ease the thais seemed in their liquid environment. Even tiny children had acquired the knack of propelling their shallow-draft, banana-shaped boats up and down the canals. Anyone travelling through the canals around Bangkok today will see that the art has not been lost, though long-tailed boats, with great hunks of noisy metal art, threaten both the continuance of the skill and the tranquility of back-canal life.
It is estimated that there were more than 100,000 boats in 17th century Ayuthaya, and it was not unusual for a grand ceremony to attract upwards of 30,000 people in boats of varying sizes. One’s status was made immediately apparent by the numbers of oarsmen one’s boat required.
Ayuthaya kings used boats in the defence of their realm. In 1548, the Burmese King Tabengchavati was stopped by the thais using boats like landing craft. The carsmen were soldiers at unexpected places around the enemy. The carsmen were soldiers rather than sailors, forerunners of our modern-day marines, and armed with sword, and, later, muskets. Chief officials on today’s barges are armed with swords and spears, very un-navy like weapons associated more with pirates than with sailors.
King Naresuan (1590-1605), one of the heroes of Thai history, used boats mounted with cannons to blunt an attack by the Burmese, who were trying to invade via the Suphanburi River. The recoil from the cannons kept pushing the light Thai boats backwards, but each shot did its damage.
Little wonder then, that when the Burmese began the attack that finally destroyed Ayuthaya in 1767, their first act was, in Pearl Harbor fashion, to smash the Thai navy to prevent it from harming them later.
When the first monarch of the Chakri dynasty, King Rama I, built the new capital at Bangkok in 1782, one of his first decrees was that a new Suphannahongse, 36.15 meters long, be built. Rama II added new barges of different designs and capacities, but by 1900 they had all fallen victim to new invaders; insects decay.
King Rama V (1868-1910) decided to start all over again. He had the barge redesigned to eliminate the sharp