If every large city in the world has a Chinatown, of course Bangkok is going to have one. It’s located south of Dusit and Banglamphu in one of the oldest areas which was originally meant for Chinese merchants in the early 1980′s when Bangkok was founded. Today, Chinatown is still very popular for gold shops, jewelry shops and pawnshops, neon signs fill the street scene.

The main street of the Chinatown area is Charoen Krung which means “Prosperous City” and actually was Bangkok’s first paved road, it’s English name “New Road” therefore couldn’t be more inappropriate. Now just because the road was paved first, doesn’t necessarily mean they maintained it. Chinatown streets nowadays are bumpy, there’s trash everywhere especially the narrow market roads, not to mention the smell of the street food vendors.

Chinatown is known for its food carts and small shopping roads like Truk Chom where you can find anything from flowers, kids toys, souvenir, fashion accessories, kid clothing, rugs, furniture cotton to whole sale shops. Walking the narrow streets watch out for fruit vendors and motorbikes passing by, there’s small signs placed all over Chinatown by the police to watch out for pick pocket thieves. Believe it or not the narrow streets even have multiple ATM’s on each side of the street.

Most of the shops in Chinatown are opened from 9 AM in the morning till 6 PM evening, most of the street vendors will start clearing the day around 5 PM. When visiting Chinatown, one of the recommended shops, actually department store to visit is called Happy Gift. Another popular Bangkok travel destination nearby Chinatown is called Wat Traimit (The Temple of Golden Buddha).

These pictures date Saturday 24th of October 2009 Chinatown, Bangkok.