Buddha Dada: Bangkok’s Rama IX Bridge: closing the gap

Construction started on Thailand’s first cable-stayed bridge, the Rama IX Bridge, late in 1984. As it was located a few kilometers downstream from the heart of Bangkok I didn’t take notice until midway through 1987 as the two sides were approaching their meeting point, and I found that image fascinating. The site office of the international consortium of companies building the structure loaned me a hardhat one day and allowed me out unto it to take pictures. I climbed the access scaffolding to the deck, entered the base of the east tower and climbed up inside to the top. Later that day I was invited back to take pictures early the following Saturday morning (June 6, 1987) when the final segment of the span was to be lifted into place from a barge. The job had to be finished before heat from the rising sun would have expanded the two sides and made the gap impossibly narrow. At the time, the Rama IX Bridge was the second longest of its type in the world.