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Golden dragon seat of enterprise

Next time you're in Bangkok, skip Khao San Road, the klongs and Patpongs, and try a different angle on the Great City of Angels.

On teeming Yaowarat Road, with its Blade Runner alleys, shrines, astrologers, herbalists and goldsmiths, you could be nowhere but in a Chinatown. But not just any Chinatown - Bangkok's is the largest in South-East Asia and one of the oldest Chinatowns in the world.

In feng shui terms Yaowarat Road is a "golden dragon area", an ideal place for turning a buck or a baht, or a million. Just five minutes on this upheaval of a street demonstrates the point. Chinatown sprawls between (and well beyond) it and Charoen Krung (New Road), and the whole area seems programmed to perpetually buy and sell, sell and buy, while drawing breath only to eat and drink, but rarely sleep.


The side streets off Yaowarat are microcosms of Sino-Thai enterprise, from textiles, flowers and furniture to apothecaries and electronics. Toss in flip-flops, hat-racks and rat-traps. Sampeng Lane, a long narrow street that runs parallel with Yaowarat, exemplifies this pot-pouri economy and was, in fact, the original main street of Chinatown.

Chinese settlers first came to Thailand in numbers during the Sukhothai period (1238-1438) and their history in the nearby Rattanakosin area dates back to even before the establishment of Bangkok as Siam's new capital in 1782.

They relocated further upriver when King Rama V encouraged more Chinese commercial trade and constructed roads in the area, including Yaowarat, in 1891. Bangkok's Chinatown now covers several square kilometres and its maze of markets and alleys, redolent of herbs, perfume, diesel, drains and stir-fry, is also a commercial hub vital to the greater Thai economy.

Soi Itsaranuphap runs between Yaowarat and Charoen Krung. Enter it and - sorry about the cliche - you might think you've stepped into a Blade Runner set, minus the 110 per cent humidity and collateral homicides.

Breathe in, inch your way forward down the 2m-wide alley, squeezing between handcarts, grandmas, babes-in-arms and bargain hunters. By the end, several hundred metres later (and however long it has taken), you've sampled a parallel "Thainatown" universe.

Chinatown is an easy 10-minute walk from Hua Lamphong MRT station or from Ratchawong ferry pier on the Chao Phraya River. Naturally, you're never far from food - be it snack stalls, cafes or restaurants - that offer brief respite from the intensity of the street.

At the little Nai Mong Hoi Thod eatery on Santiphab Road (No. 539) you'll find excellent fried oyster omelettes - they're recommended by no less than master Thai chef David Thompson of the Metropolitan Hotel's esteemed Nahm restaurant.

When evening falls, hawker stalls spring up along Yaowarat, dishing up a progressive feast of seafood and every other kind of Chinese treat. The food is fresh - if in doubt, eat where it's busy. Walk, stop and sample, then do it again.

Try a local favourite, guay chap, flat rice noodles in pepper soup. But also do the right thing by skipping those Chinese perennials, eco-uncool shark-fin and birds-nest soups.


Yaowarat Road flows day and night like an asphalt Chao Phraya River and its vehicles and pedestrians jostle with a fast-forward urgency. But not all is stress and getting.

To explore the place at your leisure, stay a few nights at one of the area's many hotels. Shanghai Mansion (479 Yaowarat), for instance, was built in 1892 and in its eventful life has been a Chinese opera house, stock exchange and textile-trading house.

Check out the lobby's Chinoiserie - red sofas, lanterns and decorative screens - all paying homage to Deco-decadent 1930s Shanghai. If you feel like staying, there are themed suites with kitsch names like Cherry Blossom Havens.

The Grand China Princess hotel sits at the heart of Chinatown on the corner of Ratchawong and Yaowarat roads. Catch an angel's-eye view of Bangkok, "the Big Mango", from its 24th floor revolving restaurant. It takes about two hours for Sky View diner to do a full 360deg. scan of the horizon.

Chinatown's most popular attraction (other than gold shops and eateries) is Wat Traimit, aka the Temple of the Golden Buddha, on Traimit Road, not far from Hua Lampong station. It houses the largest gold Buddha in the world, weighing in at 5.5 precious tonnes.

On the western edge of Chinatown, the former "Thieves Market" - these days called Nakhon Kasem - is cluttered with curio stalls that sell bric-a-brac, amulets, coins and old cameras. The phone you lost last week on Sukhumvit Road is probably there, too, somewhere.