Chinatown is one of those neighborhoods that many travelers would rate as authentic. If tourists stopped visiting tomorrow, it would remain practically the same as it is now. Its two main streets, Yaowarat and Charoen Krung, would remain crowded with cars, tuk tuks and people pushing carts with food at all hours. The merchandise, from stores that believe the street is theirs, would keep occupying the public space, while hundreds of people would go from one place to another trying to dodge all these obstacles and creating a curious order in the chaos. Chinatown is life; it is Bangkok in its purest state.

While other neighborhoods in Bangkok have sold to modernity, Chinatown has stubbornly continued to maintain its spirit of the exotic and chaotic region, as hated for some, and loved for others. And it is that the Chinatown neighborhood of Bangkok is not one more Chinatown, but it is one of the oldest in the world.

Street Food On Yaowarad Road

Yaowarad Street is the most typical of Chinatown. In that street, you can find all kinds of businesses. During the day, its numerous gold shops stand out. In the evening, restaurants and especially street food tour chinatown bangkok shops take over the neighborhood. There, you can eat practically everything and at a very good price.

Unfortunately, you will also see many restaurants that cook the sad shark fin soups. Despite there being no proof of this, some Chinese believe that eating shark fins gives sexual potency among other supposed benefits. This belief which causes the fishing practice already prohibited in the EU to catch sharks, cut their fins and return them mutilated to the sea, is one of the main causes of their decline in the world.

Also, on Yaowarad Street, you will find one of Bangkok’s most shabby and cheap cinemas, the Chinatown Rama. During the day, they screen mostly Chinese movies, but at night, their entrance is transformed into an improvised half-street restaurant that seems quite popular.