Four great places to eat in Bangkok’s Chinatown when its subway station opens
- With little room for cars, Chinatown expects a boost in visitors when its subway station opens
- From home-made ice cream to coffee to Hong Kong craft beer, these four outlets are raising the bar in Bangkok
If it opens on schedule, that is. The station, one of several stops on an extension of the Blue Line that opened in 2004 and which now ends at the Hua Lamphong Railway Station on the eastern outskirts of Chinatown, has been under construction for several years. It was originally expected to open in 2016.
“They have been saying it will open ‘this year’ for the past three years,” says Suksan Aueareechon, managing director of Baan 2459/Chata, a boutique hotel and coffee shop that opened in Chinatown in August 2017.
The history of Chinatown is intimately interwoven with the history of Bangkok. The city was founded in 1782 by general Chao Phraya Chakri (Rama I – the first of the Chakri dynasty) who moved the capital across the Chao Phraya River from Thonburi (the site of the capital of King Taksin, who ruled from 1767 to 1782) to Rattanakosin island, home to the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew (Emerald Buddha) and Sanam Luang (Royal Grounds).
In the relocation process, Rama I displaced thousands of Chinese immigrants and merchants who had made their homes on the riverbank, but provided them with a new settlement in Sampheng – the original name of Chinatown, derived from a lane that cut through the then swampy wilderness just east of Rattanakosin.
Rama I, like King Taksin before him, was keen to populate his new capital with industrious workers, so he pursued a liberal immigration policy, especially towards Chinese. Some 3.5 million arrived in Bangkok between 1882 and 1955, fleeing hunger and civil war at home.
