The Journey of Sodh: From Education to Entrepreneurship : หน้า 44/200

Sodh helped his parents with their work until he was nine when he began his formal education with his uncle, a monk at Songpinong Temple. In those days, before the establishment of state schools, monks were the only teachers and Buddhist temples functioned as schools for people in the community. When his uncle left the monkhood he went on to continue his study at Bangpla Temple, Nakornpathom Province, where he studied Thai and Cambodian languages. Sodh was fourteen when his father passed away. As the eldest son, the burden of running the family business and supporting his mother and siblings fell on his young shoulders. He took over his father’s rice trading business and worked hard to grow the business. Soon his business prospered and the family became well established. A turning point in his life came when, on one trading trip to Bangkok, he sold all the rice in his boat and headed home with the empty barge and a large sum of money. The main river routes that he traveled were extremely treacherous so he took a detour through a remote waterway known as Klong Bang-Eetan. This was a narrow stretch of canal dreaded by boatmen because it was infested with pirates and bandits. Only a few lucky boats would manage to pass Bang-Eetan without being robbed or killed. Usually they would travel in a convoy for security. That day, Sodh’s was the only boat in sight. Upon reaching this narrow stretch, the fear of death struck him. Sodh knew the strategy of the pirates: they would aim to attack the captain or the helmsman first to gain control of the boat. The person at the front of the boat would be in a safer 7Klong: Thai word for canal