Tuesday 16 December 2024
Walking east to see flood damage

Over the Nawarat Bridge

Tha Phae Road ends at the Nawarat Bridge and the road becomes Charoen Muang Road which eventually continues east to San Kamphaeng. This year, the Nawarat Bridge will be closed for the New Year’s Countdown celebration, and fairly massive decorative structures have been added. When I walked by the Nawarat Bridge on December 1, none of this decorative structure was there, so all of this was completed in December.

Nawarat Bridge

Why is the bridge named Nawarat? The first bridge over the Mae Ping River was constructed starting in 1906 and completed in 1910 as the rule of Major General Prince Kaew Nawarat (29 Sep 1862 – 3 June 1939) started. He was the 36th and last King of Lanna and Prince Ruler of Chiang Mai, reigning from 1910 to 1939. His seat was within Lanna’s capital Chiang Mai, but he never held any true administrative power as Lanna (northern Thailand) was integrated with Siam (central and southern Thailand) to become what we now know as Thailand.

The first Nawarat Bridge was built of teak, using 600 teak logs provided by the Borneo Co., Ltd., and was designed by an Italian Engineer, Count Roberty. It was a bowstring bridge, also known as a tied-arch bridge. Over the years this bridge was severely damaged by fire. The weakened bridge fell victim to floating teak logs.

Construction of the second bridge made of steel started in 1921 and was completed in 1923. It was later learned that the steel was of poor quality, and the bridge lasted only until 1965. The third and current Nawarat Bridge is made of concrete, and after 60 years, appears to be in good shape (but I am not a civil engineer).

Decoration for New Year’s Countdown

Since early December, a fairly massive structure has been placed on the bridge for the decorations for the 2025 New Year’s Countdown. Here are a couple of photos from the daytime. And those elephants are close to full size, covered in pink and blue lights.

And for a little perspective, a photo looking downstream at the Iron Bridge during the daytime. The Iron Bridge, Supphan Khua Lek in Thai, was built in 1993 and was designed like the steel Nawarat Bridge, to pay homage to that bridge. There is something about the Iron Bridge I like. Maybe it looks like a common type of railway bridge, and I do like railroading.

And some photos of the decoration on the Nawarat Bridge at night. In a couple of the photos, workers can be seen completing the lighting and setup:

Closer view of one of the elephants:

And a view of the lit decorations from downstream with a good reflection in the Mae Ping River:

And yes, I was really there…a lady from London took my photo.

Next: Railway Station Walk 3 – Wat San Pa Khoi