Bangkok · Neighbourhood of gold shops, Chinese temples and food lanes
Yaowarat is the main commercial street of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Red and gold jewellery-shop signs, Chinese temples and small shrines, seafood restaurants and grocery shops line the main road and its lanes.
After seeing Chaozhou-style cooking and dried seafood, turn onto Vanich Road for wholesale shops selling clothing, shoes, toys and stationery. Within one neighbourhood, the main road’s restaurants, lanes for worship and wholesale shops each have a different feel.
Jewellery shops with red and gold signs, old shophouses and restaurants line Yaowarat’s main road. The shops selling and buying gold jewellery are part of Chinatown’s commercial life.
Turn into the lanes off the main road to find Mahayana Buddhist and Taoist temples and small shrines. Places where residents come to pray sit among the shops, giving the area a sense of daily life beyond its food scene.
At Chaozhou-style and seafood restaurants, you can try steamed fish, crab dishes, shrimp and squid. Grocery shops also sell dried squid and shrimp, bringing ingredients and places to eat together on nearby streets.
There are also tea shops, so you can find grocery stores selling ingredients close to places serving tea or cooked dishes. It is a commercial neighbourhood where you can shop for ingredients in one place and have a Chaozhou-style meal in another.
Nearby Vanich Road has wholesale shops for clothing, shoes, toys and stationery. The goods sold there differ from the seafood and restaurants that stand out along Yaowarat’s main road.
Song Wat’s old shophouses and cafés and Talat Noi’s murals and residential lanes are nearby, but each is a separate street or neighbourhood. After eating along the main road, you can continue your walk to whichever area interests you.
Besides seafood and Chaozhou-style restaurants, you will find jewellery shops, Chinese temples and small shrines, and grocery shops selling dried seafood. Vanich Road has wholesale shops for clothing, shoes, toys and stationery.
No. Yaowarat is a neighbourhood with restaurants, shops and shrines. Each business and place of worship has its own opening hours.
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Sharing image credit: Don Ramey Logan · China Town Thanon Yaowarat Bangkok Thailand by Don Ramey Logan.jpg / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
