T.S. Eliot has written: "I think that the river / Is a strong brown god -- sullen, untamed and intractable." In addition to this, a river is also an endlessly interesting artery that carries on its stirring surface the history and most of the qualities of its country.
Such a river is Thailand's Chao Phya, the waterway that traverses its intractable length from the upper reaches all the way to Bangkok and the Gulf of Siam.
From Chiang Mai through Sukhothai and Ayuthaya, it traces the country's history, displaying along its course the infancy, adolescence and maturity of Thailand itself.