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Show PAPERMAKIN the blisterin IN SIA 1 heat, the train arrived at the great stee railway shed in Bangkok. My long, uncomfortable, bu interesting, journe was at an end, and the newly-buil Rajdhani hotel in the rambling commercial centre o Bangkok seemed pleasant indeed. It was here that T me my guide, Mr. Perm Kumpangtong, a representative o the Siamese government, who was to take me to the tw remaining paper mills, supposedly the last remnants o the old handmade paper industry of Southern Siam. According to my information one of the mills was locate near Bangsue and the other at Bang Khen. These di rections had been furnished about a year previous to m visit, but my guide was also of the impression that th mills were still in existence. Much to my chagrin, how ever, when Mr. Kumpangtong and a Siamese photographer and I started out to locate the mills it developed after considerable inquiry at native shops and house along the canals, that paper was no longer fabricated i these two outlying districts of Bangkok. We then mad an extensive tour of the capital's dingy paper shops, an after a great deal of investigation were told by an ol parchment-faced Chinese merchant that only one plac remained in Southern Siam where paper was made b hand, the small mill operated in Bangsom by an elderl woman by the name of Niltongkum. This informatio was meagre indeed, but my persistent guide, after man Al rights reserved |