A Day in Bangkok’s Chinatown
Bangkok, Thailand, 2012-09-06 12:00 by Laerke
Bangkok’s Chinatown is hustle and bustle at its outmost, everywhere you look there are people milling about – buying and selling, and cooking and eating is going on all around you. Food stalls and stands selling trinkets have already completely taken over any sidewalks and are now encroaching on the roads.



We turn of the big road and into tiny alleyways that look like I imagine they would have a 100 years ago. The shop houses lie side by side, their resident’s lives entwined with their business, the two goes together like a daughter doing her homework while mom sells incense sticks to the neighbor and an old granddad watching TV and slurping up his rice porridge while his grown son dusts off their wares. All of this happening in the front room of the family shop house.



As the day come to an end we join the throngs of people on Yaowarat Road, the shopkeepers are busy closing up shop, carrying the goods inside again and sweeping up. Shoppers emerge from the many gold stores – maybe with something precious in their pockets? Just as dusk falls and all the bright neon signs light up the sky we find a little street kitchen that serves up duck on rice, duck on noodles or duck in soup. We order a few dishes and sit there taking in all the commotion around us.