Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WALK 18
BANGRAK
The Village of Love
Walking the length of Silom Road will take us from the European district through an Indian
neighbourhood and up to an area of Christian churches, convents, hospitals and schools,
before ending at the city's most famous red-light district.
Duration: 3 hours
As with the name of Bangkok itself, no one seems to know quite how the name of Ban-
grak originated. The general opinion is that it derives from a huge rak tree that grew
in the muddy ground of a canal, Klong Tonsoong. All the locals and visitors knew this land-
mark, for the flowers of the tree are woven into garlands, and for a small village set in flat
swampland it would have been prominent. Others say the name dates from the early part of
the nineteenth century, when Catholic missionaries set up a medical care centre here: the
word
raksa
meaning “to cure sickness”. But
rak
, written in a different way, can also mean
“love”. And so Bangrak is now known as the Village of Love, illustrated by the procession of
young couples who pass through the district registry office on St Valentine's Day to ex-
change their wedding vows.
The footprint of Bangrak runs along the river from the southern side of the Padung
Krung Kasem canal to Sathorn Road, thereby spanning the old European legation district.
There are three roads laid out in parallel at right angles to the river, each of them running
up to the far border of the district at Rama
IV
Road, while one side of a fourth road, Sathorn
Road, forms the eastern border. The oldest of these is Silom Road. Western merchants
had petitioned the king directly after the signing of the Bowring Treaty for a canal to link
Padung Krung Kasem with shipping at Klong Toei, and the Hua Lampong canal had been
dug in 1857, arrow-straight across the fields and marshland to the big bend in the river,
