We are in Chinatown
and Bangkok's Chinatown is one of the largest in the world, founded in 1782.
Yaowarat Road is the main street of Bangkok's Chinatown
and is one of the most expensive areas for real estate in Bangkok.
It's well known for its variety of eateries and at night it turns into a huge street food market.
Yaowarat road has been the main centre
for trade for the Chinese community in
Bangkok for 200 years.
Before that the Chinese community were based at the location of what is now
Bangkok's Grand Palace. They had to move to allow for the palace to be built.
The main attractions in Bangkok's Chinatown are shopping, eating and Chinese opera.
My favourite!
There are loads of gold shops if you're in the market for some new jewellery
and you can also buy a variety of other goods including
souvenirs, clothing, electronics and antiques.
We're gonna explore a little bit, so let's go!
Yaowarat Road was the first official commercial area of the capital over 200 years ago.
The road was originally called Yuppharat Road and later changed its name to Yaowarat Road
which means "young king".
That king was King Rama V who took the throne at just 15 years old.
Prior to this the area was just rice fields and canals.
The buildings here have changed so little that during the production of the film
"In the Mood for Love" set in 1960s Hong Kong, the director decided to shoot the movie's
atmospheric night time scenes in Bangkok instead.
Traditionally Chinese lanterns like
these are red and oval-shaped.
In China, the colour red is believed to symbolise warmth, happiness and good fortune.
The lantern is thought to bring protection
and good luck.
One of the weirdest scams in Thailand
involves gem hustlers telling tourists
that the whole of Chinatown is shut down
in the hopes that the gullible person will visit their uncle's jewellery shop instead.
Tesco Lotus, owned by Britain's biggest retailer
is opening 250 Express stores in Thailand every year for the next three years
This will bring the total to
2,250 stores in Thailand by 2021
a sure sign that the economy here is booming.
Tuk tuks are definitely the most fun but also the most terrifying way to get around Chinatown.
They can sometimes be quicker than taking a taxi
because they can fit through tight spaces that cars can't.
They don't usually have meters though
so make sure you agree a price in advance so you don't get ripped off.
So we've just come to a restaurant in
Chinatown and we have ordered some...
We've ordered a lot of food.
We've ordered some (way too much!) fried squid, some bbq pork, some roast duck and some fried rice.
Huge garlic fried rice
Yeahhhh
We're absolutely starving, so...
We walked for like 2-3 hours, so I think we deserve some really nice food
and we will show you when it gets here.
So I'm gonna try the bbq pork first, no sauce, just to see how it is.
Mmmmmm mmmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
That is very nice
Good char siu. Just really nice.
Like fatty, not too fatty, a little bit fatty
kind of sweet and smokey.
Very good.
Now I'll try some roast duck.
A piece of the roast duck.
Hmmm it's more fatty.
Not quite as good as the pork.
Really nice flavour.
Kop khun kha (thank you in Thai)
Kop khun krap. Kop khun ka. (Thank you in Thai)
Yeah, duck is nice but pork is best.
So I'm going to review the garlic fried
rice. See what it's like.
There's a lot of it as promised.
Yeah the garlic's really good, it's not too overpowering
it's sorta medium garlic.
Let's try some of this squid fella
Looks good. In this unexplained dip.
I'm not sure what that is...
Wow.
Yeah, very good.
I think I just took all the squid out of the batter, I think it's basically just batter left now.
It's quite soft. Normally squid can be quite chewy, but this is really nice soft squid.
Quite a lot of batter but I don't mind that.
I'm not sure what this sauce is.
Um, might be sort of orange? Not sure.
Yeah tastes orangey, like zesty.
Yeah, well, really nice whatever it is.
No idea, tastes good
Yeah, let's go with orange.
We're going to eat now. Bye!
We're so full that we can barely walk
but we're still going to check out what fresh produce and street food is on offer
Restaurant owners from all over Bangkok
come here to buy their ingredients
and the quality of the food is so good
that people will travel for many hours just to eat here.
Durian is the Marmite of the fruit world.
Either you love it, or you hate it
and in its raw form it smells so bad that it's banned from many public spaces across Asia.
Chinatown is famous for having some of the best street food in Bangkok.
Many of the food-carts and restaurants
in Chinatown are family-run
with some being passed down through several generations.
You can get a decent meal from a cart
here from around 40 to 90 baht
but it can vary depending on the food you're buying.
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