Joy amid hardship

Rusty tin shacks sprawl under high-rises and billboards. Rubbish scatters and floats down the foul-smelling river. Last year, fire broke out near a local mosque. With the third wave of the coronavirus outbreak, the Klong Toey neighbourhood is hanging by a thread.

Naowarat Sayan, 66, has lived in the Klong Toey slum for 40 years. Five members — one of them falling sick — cram themselves in a dilapidated house with a leaky roof and rickety wall. Thousands are living in what is the oldest and largest ghetto covering 198 rai of land in the country. Klong Toey is home to the urban poor who form the backbone of Bangkok but are shunned and left…