Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
are frequent visitors to the workshops here to learn, and also to collect components for
their own projects. So successful has been the Siang Gong Zone that other districts have
grown up, often under the auspices of the same families, and propagating the name: in the
Wang Mai district, behind Chulalongkorn University, is Siang Gong Suan Luang; there is
a Siang Gong Rama
III
, a Siang Gong Rangsit, and, the largest of all, at 33 acres and more
than 1,200 units, Siang Gong Bang Na.
Siang Gong Zone is where old vehicle engines and transmission systems are reborn.
The Siang Gong Zone stands at the entrance to Talat Noi, the Little Market, which oc-
cupying the corner of land formed by the river and Rama
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's Klong Padung Krung Kasem,
the third and final moat, became a thriving market in the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury. These days, Talat Noi is a pleasant blending of old and new architecture, residen-
tial and commercial, culminating in the River City shopping complex, which specialises
in fine art, antiques and curios, and next to which is the busy Siphraya Pier, serving river-
boats and ferries. Chao Sua Son, a member of the influential Chao family, was a promin-
ent landowner here and along the narrow Soi Wanit 2 and down the even narrower Soi
Chao Sua Son is the family house, one of the few remaining Chinese courtyard houses in
Bangkok. The courtyard is entered under an arch and the house is built around the three
remaining sides. It is still occupied by the family.
Given the rarity of Chinese courtyard houses in Bangkok, it is rather surprising that
two should be next door to each other. The neighbouring Soi Duangtawan also leads down
to the river, and here can be found the Sol Heng Tai Mansion, built by the wealthy Sol
clan in the very early days of the founding of Bangkok. The Sols were one of the very few
Chinese families to have entered Siam in the last days of Ayutthaya, a wooden tablet in
the house recording the birth of a son in 1776, at the start of the Thonburi period. The
family were Hokkien, and they made their fortune from trading, money lending and land
holdings, in the 1840s being awarded the royal licence to collect swallows' nests for the
famous delicacy of bird nest soup. They owned a large area of land in and near Talat Noi
and also established a small trading port in front of their residence.
