Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WALK 9
EAST OUTER RAT TANAKOSIN 2
The Road to
Golden Mountain
Walking along Bamrung Muang Road will take us through the district that supplies the
country's temples, through to the Golden Mount and the village where monks' bowls are
made.
Duration: 2 hours
Follow Tanao Road southwards, and we are on one of the last original streets of Rattana-
kosin, a long line of shophouses on either side, many of them occupied by businesses
that have been here for generations. This includes shops selling musical instruments, such
as the bamboo flutes made at Ban Lao, a store named Ton Chabub that sells old Thai re-
cordings made on vinyl, and Ko Panit, which sells mangos, and which is easily spotted by
the huge heap of the fruit that spills out of the shop and onto the pavement, forming a dis-
tinctive yellow landmark seemingly both in and outside of the mango season. A few metres
further down, at the circular junction named Si Kak Sao Ching Cha, is Ong Iw Kee, more
usually known as Ong's Tea, founded more than a century ago and importing fine teas from
China and Taiwan. The shop, with its open frontage, remains unchanged since the day it
opened. In the floor tiles can be seen the original logo, a stately teapot, although there is
now a more modern sign in use, that of a friendly-faced dragon. Tea purchases will be pro-
duced from an ingenious storage area. This takes up an entire wall, where there is a series of
sliding glass panels, each decorated with motifs of butterflies, clouds, trees and leaves to
