Bangkok Old Town: where old and new combine, from the Grand Palace to trendy nightspots
Despite modern developments pushing deeper into Bangkok’s cultural heart, the temples and markets of the city’s Old Town blend seamlessly with the boisterous revelries of Khao San
Bangkok pulsates with the synergy of old and new, but one pocket of space in the Thai capital still hangs in a state of arrested development: Rattanakosin district, also known as Bangkok Old Town.
The historic heart of Bangkok, this riverside enclave with its rustic sois, or side streets, lined by weathered buildings, is where the first monarch of Thailand’s present ruling Chakri Dynasty, King Rama I, founded the kingdom of Rattanakosin in 1782. Wat Pho, the magnificent 16th-century temple that houses one of the world’s largest reclining Buddha statues, still marks the spot.
The Grand Palace, Thailand’s most opulent royal complex, with its many ornate roofs and gilded stupas, was built close to Wat Pho in 1783 and remains the place where important ceremonies, including coronations and royal funerals, are staged. Also housed within the palace is the Wat Phra Kaew, or temple of the highly revered emerald Buddha, one of Thailand’s most sacred religious sites.
Bangkok Old Town is a lived-in neighbourhood. Quaint markets, shophouses and traditional businesses exist alongside landmarks such as the Freedom Monument (commissioned in 1939 to commemorate the 1932 Siamese coup d’état) and the Bangkok City Library (the city’s largest library, in a restored neoclassical building, that spans three floors and more than 4,800 square metres) that tell of the capital’s transition to the modern era.
Mom Rajawongse Narisa Chakrabongse, an aristocratic Thai publisher and hotelier, who is a descendant of the royal lineage of King Chulalongkorn (who reigned from 1868 to 1910), spent her childhood between London and this district of Bangkok. Narisa is adamant about embracing development in the historic centre.
“If you are asking me whether I would like to return to those sweltering days before air-conditioning and other modern comforts, like convenient stores and supermarkets, I much prefer the district as it is today even though I adore the sense of history the place conveys,” she says.
