Nakhon Pathom

The area around Nakhon Pathom holds one of the oldest continuously significant Buddhist sites in Thailand. Between roughly the 6th and 11th centuries it was a major centre of the Mon-speaking Dvaravati culture, with a moated town, brick monuments and a distinctive sculpture of stone dharma wheels and standing Buddhas; the name itself is usually read as "first city". Tradition connects the site with the arrival of Buddhist missionaries from the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE, and the earliest stupa here is far older than the Thai kingdoms.

The Khmer empire later drew the region into its orbit, and the town declined as the coastline shifted and the Chao Phraya delta grew; by the Ayutthaya period the great monument stood ruined and overgrown in open country. In 1831 Prince Mongkut, then still a monk, found the ruin, and after becoming King Rama IV he ordered a vast new bell-shaped chedi to be raised over it. The work took 17 years and was finished in 1870 under his successor, leaving the structure seen today, about 120 metres tall.

A canal, then the railway west, brought the town back to life around the stupa. King Vajiravudh, Rama VI, built Sanam Chandra Palace here between 1907 and 1911 and used it as a base for the Wild Tiger Corps, his volunteer force. In the 20th century Nakhon Pathom became a provincial capital and a university town, with Silpakorn University's Sanam Chandra Palace campus in the grounds since 1965 and Mahidol University's large campus at Salaya towards Bangkok, while Bangkok's suburbs and industry crept steadily westwards.

The chedi organises the town in every sense. It is a pilgrimage site as much as a monument: Thai visitors come to make merit, circle the terrace with flowers and incense, and take home miniature replicas, and the November fair around it is the province's biggest annual event. Its silhouette appears on the provincial seal and on the products of local businesses, and local identity is built on being the site of the country's first Buddhist foundation.

The Dvaravati inheritance gives the province an archaeological character unusual in central Thailand: the museums hold stone wheels, terracotta heads and Mon inscriptions, and Silpakorn University, founded to teach fine art and archaeology, maintains that link. The student population of the Sanam Chandra and Salaya campuses also gives the town a younger, cheaper, more informal side than its conservative surface suggests, with cafés and small live-music bars near the universities.

The province has a strong Chinese-Thai presence in trade and in the shophouses around the market, and a long-established rural Lao-descended population in some districts, with local temple fairs and likay folk theatre still performed. Old farming customs persist in the orchards: pomelo growing, sugar cane and coconut gardens are family businesses passed down, and the fruit season shapes the calendar as much as the Buddhist one.

Nakhon Pathom is a small provincial city at the centre of a much larger province that is increasingly an extension of Bangkok's western edge. The town's day starts before dawn at the market and quietens early; government offices, schools, hospitals and the two university campuses provide much of the steady employment.

The provincial economy is agricultural and industrial at once. Orchards and market gardens supply Bangkok with pomelo, coconut, sugar cane, vegetables and flowers, and the pig and poultry industries are large here. Food processing, packaging and light manufacturing plants line the highways, and the commute into Bangkok by road or rail is a daily routine for many residents of the eastern districts, where housing estates have replaced fields.

Life is provincial and family-centred: shophouse businesses run by the same families for generations, evening exercise and markets in the park around the chedi, temple merit-making on Buddhist holy days. Current concerns are the ones of a town being absorbed by a growing capital — land prices, traffic on the highways, water quality in the Tha Chin River, and seasonal air pollution drifting in during the dry months.

Nakhon Pathom's best-known product is fruit: som o, the pomelo, grown in the province's orchards and sold at roadside stalls whole or peeled into pink and white segments to be eaten with a dip of salt, sugar and chilli. Coconut and sugar cane grow alongside it, and the palm sugar of the western plains sweetens much of the local cooking.

The town's signature snack is khao lam: sticky rice, coconut cream, sugar and black beans packed into a length of bamboo and roasted over charcoal until the rice sets, then split open along the tube. Stalls sell it in bundles near the chedi and beside the railway, and it is the standard gift to take home. Other sweets follow the central Thai repertoire — khanom krok, layered khanom chan and egg-yolk confections.

Savoury eating is Chinese-Thai and market-based. Khao mu daeng, red-roasted pork over rice with a sweet gravy and boiled egg, and khao mu krop, crisp pork belly, are served in shophouses around the market; kuay tiao noodle soups and pork satay are everywhere; and the riverside markets to the east, Don Wai in particular, are known for duck braised or roasted with Chinese herbs, eaten with rice or noodles. Freshwater fish from the Tha Chin, grilled in a salt crust, is a weekend family dish.