Walking around the old Sampheng market near Chinatown in Bangkok.

My solar lights needed to be repaired so I took a bus to a weekend market in the old part of Bangkok. That area was well known as a source of all kinds of electrical gadgets and tools. There were a long row of free lance repairers available to repair electrical appliances at very reasonable costs. I did find a repairer for my broken solar lights. Only one lamp could be repaired as the old battery could be replaced while the other lamps couldn’t be repaired as I couldn’t find ant compatible batteries in any shops. So, I knew which solar light was a better investment in the long run.

As I had some spare time, I decided to take a long walk towards the old Sampheng market to see how things have changed. The roads used to be much more crowded and traffic jams used to be routine features. So, I was quite surprised to see few people and hardly any traffic around the area. Perhaps it was long public holiday so people tended to go on short holidays. All the shops also looked quite lonely and yearning for customers. I felt very sad and sorry for these vendors who were expecting that things would improve after the long lock down.

This area used to be thronged with customers looking for new fabric and cloth. People didn’t have access to cheap textiles from China or Korea and ready made clothes weren’t widely available. Dress makers would descend to this market looking for new designs of buttons and accessories to entice their customers to have new tailored made dresses, blouses and skirts. Since the cheap and fashionable clothes from Korea and China swamped the market, the impact on local textile industry, dress makers and tailors has become quite devastating. Several tailoring schools had to close down, textile companies had to move to China or shut down. Many tailors and dress makers became unemployed. Nowadays, it’s difficult to find a good dress maker at reasonable fees.

Some high society and rich people still preferred hand made clothes with unique design. These people would search for expensive imported textiles such as Italian silk and laces. There has always been a big Indian community in this area so beautiful Indian textiles for making Sari could be found in several shops along the old road. I loved to observe the different styles of townhouses which were often modified several times during the past sixty years. The facades looked quite disorderly and expressed the owners’ artistic preferences.

I took a short cut to reach the famous canal in the middle of Sampheng market. This area really made me very nostalgic of my childhood days when I used to accompany my mother on her shopping trips. She always walked so fast and I was very afraid of getting lost among the crowds. The canal used to be covered with hundreds of vendors’ stalls and big umbrellas so we couldn’t see the canal at all. During the drive towards tourism, vendors had to disappear so the canal could be modernised and developed to be something similar to the atmosphere along the Seine river in Paris. The local authority dreamt of imitating Paris canal walk at Klong zing-Ang in Sampheng.

Just before the lockdown, the promotion towards tourism had made a big transformation to this canal. Trees were planted along the canal and there were colourful lights to create lovely reflections on the canal at night. There were small eateries, coffee shops, streetfood stalls along the canal. Artists were invited to create wall murals and graffiti along the walls. Life music would entertain visitors during weekends.

I was very impressed by the lively atmosphere and rich crowds during the boom period. There were two wine and champagne shops along the canal. In those days, fashionable and artistic crowds flocked to the canal. I saw rich high society people having wine, big bike clubs also met up for cold beer and street food at the canal. Young people were in their best outfits for their selfies with colourful graffiti. But the whole fun period was stopped by the lockdown.

This time, it seemed the local authority had lost the will to revive this canal back to its glorious days. There use to be kayaking along the canal during the weekends too. Visitors and tourists had to check in this canal after their visit to Chinatown. It’s less than ten minutes’ walk from Chinatown. The deterioration of wall paintings and graffiti was rather shocking. Many had to be taken off as the paint became too worn out by rain and sunshine. Very few wall paintings were left as a souvenir of the good old days.

There were four Japanese tourists taking selfies at the canal. The old looked a bit run down and abandoned. The local authority was busy with new projects elsewhere where they could justify the new spending budget. It’s rather difficult to rehabilitate old project which had not been well maintained or monitored. It would become a blame game so they’d rather forget about the past and spend money on new project.

• I wasn’t very joyful walking along the canal quietly. Some investors had opened coffee shop, wine shop and restaurants by the canal. Most smaller shops were all closed. So, it didn’t seem fair to me that these investors were persuaded by the local authority to get involved in this project and then they were left high and dry. The local authority should at least repair the old wall murals or replaced those old damaged ones. The local community should have made noises about the neglect by local authority. The canal looked clean and the atmosphere was pleasant and peaceful in the evening. I hoped that people would find ways of reviving the old wall murals and renovate the canal surroundings.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.

#wednesdaywalk hosted by @tattoodjay