The boat, long and low, is cutting through the milky Chao Praya at speed. The river is choppy today, and sprays of water erupt from the front of the boat as it races towards the overgrown mass of green that is the island of Koh Kret, just north of the city of Bangkok.
We arrive in a market- or the bones of one. The roof is a leafy network of corrugated metal sheets, stitched together over a scattering of columns. It’s February and hot in Bangkok, but the air under this canopy feels especially punishing. I am dripping sweat onto everything, now resigned after a few days in this city that I will sweat constantly, I will slowly die under the sun that seems to come from all directions, I will wither like a pale squash and become a paste that can hopefully be useful as grout or sealant or at least some sort of compost. Whatever still exists of this market is quiet today. Most shops are closed, now storage sites for building materials and whatever else needs to escape the punishing sun.
We follow the central road of Koh Kret, which forms a loop around the island. As you move away from the market stalls on the shore of the river, you are plunged into a quiet, stunningly beautiful landscape, pock-marked with wispy buildings that seem to exist only because the greenery is constantly cut back from them. Vines, palms, and waxy-leaved trees explode from every inch of soil. The buildings are consumed by an overwhelming cacophony of green, tangled and alive. The heat is oppressive, the air away from the river is still and unbelievably humid.
A great roof rises from between the green. Within; the sleeping form of a giant, the delicate arch of a massive kiln, a great ziggurat of red-brown bricks. The masonry has softened and fused anywhere the monsoon rains have touched it through holes in the tin roof. Fissures and cracks run through it, smooth gulleys sculpted by water. The kiln and its surrounds are strewn with the evidence of what this island is known for: intricately carved and punched pottery. Most is presented in the natural color of the earth, the same warm terra cotta hue of the kilns. Some is dyed pure black, using soot to stain the clay.
The carvings are minuscule and hypnotic, they create an air of preciousness and delicacy. Yet the kiln is encircled by a field of broken pottery. Large plastic tubs are filled with water and the shards of rejected works, destined to become workable clay once again. Everywhere there is evidence of masters at work, craftspeople who destroyed objects of immense beauty because their beauty was not quite immense enough.
There are showrooms scattered throughout the island, all of them selling pieces made by the potters of Koh Kret. I enter into a dimly lit shop, the only sounds are the lazy sweep of fans above, beating in vain against the solidly hot air. I browse in silence, the shopkeep sits nearby on a creaky porch overlooking a pond capped with a supernaturally verdant shade of algae.
I find an object of immeasurable beauty and buy it, I cradle it like a baby on the choppy boat ride back to the shore of Bangkok proper. I occasionally peel the newspaper wrapping away to glimpse at the precious thing inside. The clay is matte black, cut and scored with what feels like a million little signatures, the mark of a hand so confident as to make the heavy earth into a kind of lace.
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