Bangrak

On paper, the riverside Bangrak area suffers from a littany of urban ills.  It is choked with traffic, and divided by a roaring freeway. On two sides, it is overshadowed by truly gargantuan high rise blocks, one in a permanent state of halfbuilt ruin, and in its side streets residents of poor local communities rub shoulders with vulgar displays of wealth. Busloads of middle-aged Western tourists are disgorged at the luxury riverside hotels, and a small army of roving conmen stalk them.

And yet, despite all of this, Bangrak is  not nearly as bleak as it sounds. In fact it is charming, hands down one of Bangkok’s liveliest and most picturesque neighborhoods. Much of this is due to its dense concentration (for Bangkok) of historical buildings. Nowhere else in the city can offer the same rich heritage of crumbling Italianate mansions by the river and shuttered Portuguese shophouses along the main street – once Bangkok’s only street – called “Charon Kreung”.

And the huge towers that loom over these buildings don’t detract from them at all, in fact the contrast is quite aesthetically pleasing. One edifice is the white-balconied, copper-domed State Tower (home to the city’s swankiest rooftop bar) while the contrasting Ghost Tower (more below), its stillborn twin,  provides one of the most intriguing landmarks in the city.

But it is the old buildings combined with the lively streetlife  that is the main attraction. There is a lovely green wooden-shuttered mosque built two hundred years ago by the Haroon people (immigrants from an obscure people in Indonesia during the reign of Rama V), streets of Indian and Chinese immigrants, the city’s biggest Catholic school and the 1860s French Embassy. Even the swarms of tourists somehow bring a lively edge to the neighborhood streets, rather than detract from them, and the con Bymen they attract are generally benign and transparent (” 20 baht tuk tuk ride, anywhere in city!”)

By the river are the old embassies and the houses of the great trading companies that opened up Bangkok to European trade. The Customs House ( on the right in the bottom picture), now fallen into picturesque decay was where Wong Kar Wai filmed “In the Mood For Love”. The view across the river from here is of the church of Santa Cruz in the former Portuguese district in Thonburi, one of Bangkok’s most surprising landmarks.

Just behind this is a network of narrow little alleyways, strung with laundry and packed with potplants where the Haroon mosque stands in a walled garden; a green, wooden mosque with no dome. In fact, the side streets around this neighborhood contain all kinds of surprises; wet markets, Chinese shrines, glittering Thai temples and seminaries where monks orange robes hang out on the walls to dry in the sun, and alleys of traditional open-walled shops.