How Khao San road in Bangkok went from a rice market to the world's most famous backpacker district

How a small street in Bangkok became over time the mythical backpacker district known to all travellers in Thailand. 

An article by Joe Cummings, the creator of the very first Lonely Planet Thailand guidebook, which was published in the early 1980s.

There was a time when the locals sold rice on the Khao San road in Bangkok. Lots of rice.

Barge after barge they paddled, and later drove, up the vast Chao Phraya River and to the mouth of the Banglamphu Canal, where they deposited thousands of tons in jute sacks with the local wholesalers.

At the end of the 19th century, Banglamphu district was by far the largest rice market, not only in Bangkok, but in the whole of Siam, the largest rice producing country in the world.

See also : How Thailand became the world's largest rice exporter with the help of Hong Kong

Smaller vendors have opened shops south of the canal, where a dirt lane has become so congested with the rice trade that King Chulalongkorn ordered the construction of a road in 1892.

Only 410 metres long, this paved strip was not large enough to be named after a Thai historical figure or other symbol of the nation, unlike the city's other thoroughfares, so it was simply called Soi Khao San (Rice Mill Alley).

As Banglamphu prospered from the profits of rice, the area grew with clothing shops (including the first ready-made Thai school uniforms).

There were buffalo leather shoes, jewellery, gold leaf and costumes and badges for Thai classical dance theatre.

The local demand for entertainment has resulted in two musical theatre houses, Thailand's first national label (Kratai) and one of the kingdom's first silent film theatres.

Yet only 100 years later, an invasion of international backpackers has almost completely eclipsed the local market culture.

Starting in dribs and drabs in the late 1970s, when Bangkok was a terminus for the Asian hippie trail, the influx became a tidal wave in the 1990s.

Guesthouses proliferate

I don't think anyone could have predicted the inexorable evolution of the road and the surrounding area.

When I first walked along Khao San Road on a research trip for the first edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand 40 years ago, it was lined with late 19th and early 20th century two-storey shop houses.

At street level were rows of shoe shops, Thai and Chinese cafes, noodle vendors, grocery shops and motorbike repair shops.

The owners or tenants lived above them.

A few rice merchants hung on, but as ten-wheel trucks took over from river barges, most rice transport and trade moved elsewhere.

While Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown, was the main commercial centre for Chinese traders and residents, and Phahurat served the Indian community, Banglamphu was clearly a more Thai kingdom.

On the corner of Chakkaphong and Phra Sumen streets, handicraft shops still made costumes and masks for Thai classical theatre dancers.

I spent a long, hot day taking notes on the Grand Palace, Emerald Buddha Temple (Wat Phra Kaew), the temple of the reclining Buddha (Wat Pho) and the giant swing, all within a one-kilometre radius of Khao San Road.

These are arguably the main tourist attractions in the city, so when I noticed two Sino-Thai hotels on Khao San Road, I immediately thought to recommend them in my guidebook as a convenient base for travellers.

The 1st (1982) and 2nd (1984) editions of the Lonely Planet Thailand guide. Photo: Joe Cummings

Almost identical in their modest facilities, the Nith Chareon Suk and Sri Phranakhon hotels then cost $5 per night and catered to Thai traders who bought goods in bulk in Banglamphu to sell abroad.

In a narrow alley nearby, I was even more delighted to come across the VS Guest House, recently opened by a Banglamphu family who welcomed guests in their 1920s wooden house for 1.50 $ per person.

As I continued to explore the alleys, I discovered two other family-run guesthouses with similar prices, Bonny and Tum.

These two hotels and three guesthouses were the sum total of the accommodation on Khao San Road that I listed in the first guidebook "Thailand: A Travel Survival Kit", published the following year, 1982.

When I returned a year later to update the information for the second edition, five more guesthouses along or near Khao San had appeared, so I dutifully added these for the 1984 edition.

From then on, every time I returned to Banglamphu for the biannual update of the guidebook, the number of accommodation places had multiplied exponentially.

Over a decade, the choices have multiplied, block by block, from Khao San Road to other streets and alleys in the district, until backpacker hotels and guesthouses now number well over 200.

The effect of the film The Beach

By the mid-1990s, the area had become a global phenomenon, the largest backpacker centre among the three Ks: Kathmandu, Khao San and Kuta Beach.

In addition to housing and feeding the world's largest population of backpackers, the Khao San Road has become a global competitor for its black market in unlicensed tapes, CDs and DVDs, fake IDs, counterfeit books and branded luggage.

Dozens of travel agencies offer unparalleled fares on little-known airlines with imaginative itineraries to virtually every airport in the world.

Alex Garland, an unknown writer at the time (now famous for making the science fiction films 'Ex Machina' and 'Annihilation')', gave Khao San's bad-boy reputation a boost with his 1996 cult novel, 'The Beach'.

Based on Garland's own travels in Thailand, the first seven chapters take place on the road to Khao San, where Richard, a young English backpacker, meets an eccentric Scotsman calling himself Daffy Duck who gives him a secret map of "the beach".

The novel describes a room in a typical Khao San inn of the time:

"One wall was concrete, the side of the building.

The others were made of Formica.

They moved when I touched them.

I had the feeling that if I leaned against one of them, it would topple over and maybe hit another, and all the walls in the neighbouring rooms would come down like dominoes.

Just before the ceiling, the walls stopped, and a strip of wire mesh covered the space.

See also: How a secret hippie hideout in Thailand turned into a world-famous retreat

A film adaptation directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonard DiCaprio appeared in cinemas around the world in 2000, and probably brought Khao San Road to a wider audience than the novel or my Lonely Planet guides.

In the same year, Italian electronic music producer Spiller released a video of his dance track "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)", shot in Bangkok with a prominent scene at the end where Spiller and singer Sophie Ellis-Baxter dance in an underground club on Khao San Road.

That year, a New Yorker article described Khao San Road as "the travel hub for half the world, a place that thrives on the desire to be somewhere else" because it was "the safest, easiest, most Westernised place to launch a trip to Asia".

The Khao San road today

According to the Khao San Business Association, in 2018, the road welcomed an incredible 40,000 to 50,000 tourists per day in high season, and 20,000 per day in low season.

With such numbers, it was not really surprising when the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority announced in 2019 that it was investing €1.3 million to turn Khao San Road into a regulated "international pedestrian street".

Launched perhaps in part to counter Khao San's somewhat dubious reputation, the project was completed by the end of 2020, with a repaved road and paths, and retractable bollards designating spaces for 250-350 licensed Thai vendors, selected by lottery.

Khao San road today. Photo: Pacharapapon

Vehicles will not be allowed on the road from 9am to 9pm every day.

When the coronavirus pandemic forced Thailand to close its borders in April 2020, international tourist arrivals dropped to zero almost overnight.

The Khao San road partially recovered, however, when domestic travel was reopened in July, and by the time the renovated Khao San road was launched in November 2020, weekends found the road crowded with young Thais as well as fewer expatriates.

The street bars, which used to have 80 % European customers, are now almost 90 % Thai.

A ten-day series of light shows called "Khao San Hide and Seek" drew a steady crowd in November.

The installations were complemented by live performances by nearly 20 music groups.

Local studios held workshops focusing on traditional Banglamphu arts, such as khon costume embroidery (classical Thai dance drama), khaotom nam woon (sticky rice triangles steamed in fragrant pandanus leaves) and thaeng yuak (fresh banana trunks carved in intricate patterns, used in funerals, monastic ordinations and other Buddhist ceremonies).

The district suffered another setback when a second wave of coronavirus cases peaked in early January 2021.

The government quickly ordered the closure of all entertainment venues in Bangkok, and once again Khao San Road was almost completely emptied.

When I returned to a deserted Khao San later that month, I decided to stop at the VS Guesthouse, the first and oldest guesthouse still standing.

All the other guesthouses in the area that I passed that day were closed, but to my surprise, the vintage wooden doors of the VS were wide open.

I spoke to the family who own the house, now in their fourth generation.

Rintipa Detkajon, the elder of the two sisters who now run the house, recalls that her late father, Vongsavat, started hosting foreigners around 1980, allowing them to sleep on the family's living room floor.

"I was about 16 years old when our first guest, an Australian, stayed here overnight," she says.

"The foreigners of that time travelled so quietly. They were interested in history and culture, unlike the young people we see today, who seem to be more interested in getting drunk and partying.

Over the years, the family expanded the wooden house, at one point reaching a maximum of 18 rooms.

They now operate 10 rooms at $10 a night.

On the day of my visit, only one room was occupied, by an American on a long-term stay.

I asked Rintipa about the lack of activity due to the pandemic.

"It's not just us, it's the whole world," she replied.

"We are all in the same boat.

This is our home, so we will survive.

See also :

The 7 best guides on Thailand to prepare your trip

Foreigners to start returning to Thailand in the second half of the year

Source: edition.cnn.com