Wind & Water Publishing, Bangkok 2004, 272 pages, Hardbound with dustjacket. Fine Condition. Large Format: 13 x 9.5 inches(34 x 24 cm.)740 photographs and illstrations. Heavy book with a weight of five pounds (2.3 kg.) Extra Postage will apply. If one understands the importance of rivers and the symbolism of water in Thai culture, one understands Thai history, economy, culture, and values. Water is paramount in everything from food to festivals, royal and lay rites of passage, commerce, village settlement patterns, transportation, housing, literature, and art, and that understanding the core meaning of water to Thais adds a new dimension to an appreciation of all they have accomplished. While it is a unique approach to Thailand, critical reviews suggest that it is a valid one. If nothing else, it makes for entertaining and thought-provoking reading. And the hundreds of illustrations both support the arguments and enhance the reader's appreciation. "Steve Van Beek is the River guy" The text is both lyrical and magisterial, nto these sumptuously illustrated pages Van Beek has poured his copious knowledge of Thai history and geology, flora and fauna, river boats and royal barges, rice farmers and teak wallahs, dams and fish traps, river spirits and water rites, waterborne communities and modern river pilots. You would have to be really crazy about the Chao Phraya River to do what Steve Van Beek has done: Tracing the lengths of the mighty river's tributaries - the Ping, Wang, Yom and Nan rivers - from their sources on a paddle boat, rowing through forests, gorges, mountain passes, and past valleys, plains and farmlands on solo journeys that lasted months. From the Ping in Northern Thailand he paddled down to Nakhon Sawan in the Central Plain, where the four rivers merge to form the Chao Phraya, and from there followed the River of Kings, as the Chao Phraya is known, to where it empties into the Gulf of Thailand at Paknam in Samut Prakan. Rowing a total of 1,152 kilometres, he was visibly lighter when he finished his long adventurous journey, but he lived to tell the tale in Slithering South, one of several books he has written about Thailand's best known river. Van Beek's observations of life along the Chao Phraya while he was slithering south from the river's sources has led to another book, this time looking at the river as a mirror that reflects the evolution of the Kingdom. In Thailand Reflected in a River the author follows the route of the Chao Phraya, taking readers back in time to the ancient kingdoms of Lanna, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya before exploring the development of Bangkok as seen from the river. "Water is the true home of the Siamese, and it is on this, their native element, that their real character and genius are best exhibited," Ernest Young observed in The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (1898). To this Van Beek adds that from the beginning, Thais have sited their cities near rivers, a trait which distinguishes them from most other Asian cultures. "Thai monarchs in north and central Thailand built their principal towns beside rivers in the belief that they were integral components of urban design, providing sustenance, mobility, and protection," he writes. "In so doing, the Thais melded two worlds, the liquid and the solid, into a cohesive whole, making island fortresses of their cities." However, there is one notable exception: Sukhothai. Wondering why Thailand's first capital was the only royal city not built on the banks of a river - and how a city as small as Sukhothai could have produced superb temples, a grand palace and a multitude of beautiful monuments in only 150 years of active existence - the author goes on to unravel the mystery, citing accounts by archaeologists, historians, architects and other scholars. Thailand Reflected in a River highlights the importance of the Chao Phraya, and water, not only as a dependable provider of the Thai staple foods
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