Three parts of Bangkok you probably don’t know

September 29

Last year, Bangkok attracted just under 23 million visitors, making it the world’s most-visited city, according to an annual ranking by Mastercard. But with so many tourists, it can pay to dig beneath the surface. Here’s my pick of top things to see in Bangkok that most visitors don’t know about.

THE OLD CAPITAL OF BANGKOK

“On this side of the river you get the best views of Bangkok because there are no other buildings around us,” says Christian Hoechtl, former general manager of Avani Riverside, a hotel set in a skyscraper in Thonburi — the area on the east bank of the Chao Phraya River. “And as this is where the city was founded, it has many secrets.”

To help uncover them I enlisted Chin of Chili Paste Tour, a former school teacher who does food and history tours in Thonburi.

The tour kicks off with a boat ride across the Chao Phraya River. Instead of hitting Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, one of the most photographed sites in Thailand, we hit Wat Rakhang, the Temple of Bells.

A symphony of bells greets visitors at Wat Rakhang; they are rung by devotees to bring them luck in business. Inside is a 250-year-old teak house with the library of King Taksin, the monarch who moved the Thai capital to Thonburi after the old capital Ayutthaya was sacked by the Burmese in 1767.

The library’s walls are covered in frescoes depicting life in Ayutthaya: ancient arts like noodle making, copper-bowl making and puppetry. And Chin knows exactly where to find them, including a hole-in-the-wall that makes one of Bangkok’s best duck-noodle soup. “Thonburi still feels old,” Chin says.

foodtoursbangkok.com

THE GREEN LUNG OF BANGKOK

Also on the other side of the Chao Phraya River is Bang Krachao, an artificial island Thailand’s late King Bhumibol turned into a park in the 1960s to give Bangkokians a place to get away from the traffic

The smartest way to see it is on two wheels with The Other Side of Bangkok, a tour company formed “to show tourists unique places they can’t easily find by themselves,” says the owner Peach, who like many Thais goes by only one name.

We meet at Bangkok Port 10km south of the CBD, where a long-tail boat whisks us across the river to a rickety wooden jetty. There we see a slice of rural Thailand — a quiet calm place with bamboo shacks, crumbling old temples and raised walkways that snake through mangrove forests and fruit plantations.

“This land is farmed communally by the local villagers and they make special sweets and iced teas with them at the local market that we’ll visit for lunch,” says Peach. “There’s one iced tea called Bael fruit you have to try. It tastes like marmalade, the perfect summer cooler.”

othersideofbangkok.com

BANGKOK’S RIVIERA

A short stroll from Khao San Road, Bangkok’s famous backpacker district, is the bohemian riverside district of Phra Athit Road. The first thing that’ll catch your eye here is a large white conical castle that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Game Of Thrones. Its name is Phra Sumen Fort, one of two remaining forts built in the 18th century by King Rama to protect the city from raiders. The manicured gardens surrounding the fort — Santi Chai — is one of Bangkok’s most beautiful parks. In the mornings you can see seniors doing tai chi, in the evenings it attracts buskers and on weekends there’s a market crammed with art, books and fashion.

Any district in Bangkok worth its salt has its speciality food and Phra Arthit is no exception; along the tree-shaded footpath, between a row of old shop fronts reinvented as cafes, barbershops, juice bars and boutiques, is Roti Mataba. Since 1948, it has enjoyed a roaring trade selling Mataba, parcels of unleavened bread stuffed with spicy southern Thai curries said to be the ultimate fusion of Thai and Indian cuisine.

roti-mataba.net