Page 89 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Bangkok

Downtown ❮❮ 87

A WALK THROUGH THE OLD
FARANG QUARTER
River City
Shopping Complex
Royal Orchid
Sheraton
Charoen Krung
Tha Si Phraya Pier Road
Portuguese Embassy
General Post Office
Haroon Mosque Soi
34
Soi 36
French
Oriental Hotel Embassy
M. R. Kukrit’s Heritage Home East Asiatic Assumption
Company
Cathedral
M. R. Kukrit’s Heritage
9 MORNING
Home
MAP P6 • Soi 7, Narathiwat Begin this half-mile (1-km)
Ratchanakarin Road • 02 286 8185 walking tour at the upscale River
• Open 10am–4pm daily • Adm City Shopping Complex (see p61),
Descended from Rama II (see p33), on the riverfront just north of the
pier at Tha Si Phraya. You will
Mom Rajawongse Kukrit Pramoj find jewelry, books, restaurants,
(1911–95) was one of the best-loved clothes, and more. On the third
Thais of the 20th century. He founded and fourth floor are shops selling
the newspaper Siam Rath and wrote rare antiques, and an antiques
hundreds of plays, poems, and auction is held every fourth
novels. He even served as Prime Saturday of the month. From
Minister in 1975–6. His house, with here head back south, passing
the Royal Orchid Sheraton (see
many beautiful artworks and a p114) to glimpse the Portuguese
garden, is preserved as he left it. Embassy. Operational from 1820,
this was the first embassy to
be established in Siam by any
BANGKOK TRAFFIC European power. Follow the lane
Traffic in Bangkok is known for going out to Charoen Krung Road and
nowhere. Drivers sit in a sea of vehicles. turn right to reach the General
Yet it was not always like this. In The Post Office, a massive Art Deco
Land of the White Elephant (1873), building. Walk south along
Frank Vincent writes: “the nobles...may Charoen Krung from the post
office and turn right into Soi 34
occasionally be seen taking a drive at
the fashionable hour of the after noon, to see old wooden houses; the
winding lane leads to Haroon
sitting gravely upright and...looking Mosque, a small, attractive
upon their friends...with a sense of stucco building used by the
new-found importance.” local Muslim popu lation. The
next lane south, Soi 36, is home
Jim Thompson House
0 to the French Embassy, which
was the second embassy to be
One of the most popular sights
in Bangkok, this beautiful com pound established in Bangkok. Walk
south, crossing Soi 38 and 40 to
of traditional Thai houses set in a reach the Assumption Cathedral
lush tropical garden allows visitors (see p85). From the cathedral,
to imagine how life in a well-to-do, follow an alley west towards
the river, where the former
mid-20th century Bangkok home head quarters of the East Asiatic
might have been. The evocative fur- Company, built in 1901, still stands.
nishings, sculptures, and tapestries Have tea and cakes in the Authors’
give the building a refined character. Lounge at the historic Oriental
Visitors to the house must join a Hotel (see p85) next door to end
guided tour, which are regular and your morning’s walk.
in several languages (see pp30–31).
See map on pp84–5
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