Conversations with the People of Bonkai and Exploration of Klong Toei
by Kanya Panichkul · Kanya Leelalai · Rudee Roengchai
ภาษาอื่น / Other language: English · ไทย
(English translation by GPT-5)
June 25, 2010
1. More Than We Thought, Deeper Than We Knew
Today, Ms. P. came to pick me up to go down into the Bonkai area together. Another friend, Ms. S., had arranged to meet us in front of the Bonkai community.
Ms. P. was born and had lived there for many years before her family moved to Phra Khanong, though she still has many relatives who have remained in Bonkai until today.
We took the expressway, exiting at Ekkamai–Ramintra near Sukhumvit Soi 50, then drove along Phra Khanong toward Rama IV Road. I told Ms. P. that at first, I had thought of walking from Samyan all the way to Klong Toei, stopping to talk with people along the way.
But I explained to her, “We’re not going there to walk — we’re going to open our hearts and listen. For our own understanding. Maybe it will help us untangle the situation and, in some small way, contribute to healing the divisions between people.”
Because we are not people of any color or faction.
We are just ordinary citizens, with free minds, and concern for our fellow human beings.
We decided that we might start broadly — to get a sense of the overall landscape — and only later go down to talk with people in specific parts of the area once we could see the whole picture more clearly.
Ms. P. began by describing the geography and ownership of the land.
She said that, along Sukhumvit Road, everything on the right-hand side — from Soi 71 (Pridi Banomyong) up to Soi Nana — had historically been the land of old aristocrats, royal relatives, and senior government officials. It has since become an expensive residential zone filled with luxury condominiums, many owned by foreigners.
The left-hand side of Sukhumvit, stretching toward Rama IV, was historically land belonging to the Crown Property Bureau, continuing all the way to Hua Lamphong.
“These things,” she said, “I heard from my father, who has already passed away, so you might want to check the facts again.”
When we turned onto Rama IV Road, she pointed out that the right-hand side connected toward Sukhumvit while the left reached the old railway line.
“I’ll take you first along Rama IV,” she said, “past Channel 3 where the red shirts burned the building — then we’ll go down the old railway line.
In the old days that was the main trading route. But after Rama IV was widened, trade there declined.”
As we passed Channel 3, I exclaimed, “Ah, I understand now — this is the area from those online videos, the place that burned.”
Once Ms. P. turned onto the old railway road, it was as if we had traveled back in time.
Old wooden houses still stood, some repaired, some replaced by shop-houses.
Ms. P. explained that the Klong Toei district was full of crowded communities — yet at the same time, prime real estate.
I thought of the violent market conflict in 2008, when two protesters were killed and over a hundred injured while resisting what they said was an unfair market redevelopment contract — a web of interests that tied together the Port Authority, powerful police, and politicians.
Ms. P. told me, “That’s just one part of it. The real story is much bigger. The Port Authority owns thousands of rai here. There were already plans for massive new projects since the time of Prime Minister Thaksin.”
I told her, “Let’s meet Ms. S. first. She’s been waiting. Then we can all go survey the whole area together. After that, we can return and talk to specific people more deeply.”
2. Stories from the Locals
By the time we arrived, Ms. S. had probably been waiting a while.
She’d already finished her lunch of stewed pork leg rice and was waiting in front of the Siam Commercial Bank branch.
Since Ms. P. had lived here for many years, she knew many of the shop owners.
We parked the car inside the Bonkai flats and walked out.
On the way, she stopped to pay respect to an elderly man. I followed suit.
“That’s my father’s old barber,” she told me softly. “After my father passed, I came back here to get my hair cut by him, just like my father used to.”
I asked if we might come back later to speak with the barber.
“Of course,” she said. “You can talk to anyone here. I know almost everyone.”
We met Ms. S. at the bank and decided to eat at the same pork-leg shop since I had been craving it since our phone call earlier.
While eating, Ms. P. began chatting with the shop owner — a Chinese woman everyone called “Ah-sor.”
It turned out her shop sat right at the frontline during the clashes between red-shirt protesters and the army.
Ah-sor recounted the terrifying night.
“The red shirts started closing the road around two in the morning,” she said. “They parked taxis across the street, brought in piles of tires. I had already bought my supplies for the day, so I opened the shop like usual. But things kept getting worse. They were shouting, taunting the soldiers, throwing bottles, fireworks, homemade bombs.”
The army responded with tear gas.
“I didn’t know who was shooting at whom,” she said. “The noise was deafening.”
She closed the shop, hid behind the steel shutter, and peeked through a gap to watch — trembling.
“By noon everything had to close. My food was all wasted.”
The protesters set tires ablaze. Thick smoke filled her shop, coating the floor and ceiling with black grime that took days to clean.
“They were using radios to communicate, not phones,” she added. “They knew what they were doing.”
When we asked about the cleanup afterwards — the public “Big Cleaning Day” — she said,
“The Bangkok officials came with chemicals and resurfaced the road with tar. The damage was too much for scrubbing. Each family had to clean their own house. Everyone was exhausted.”
While we talked, a man at the next table — around sixty — listened attentively.
I smiled and gestured to invite him into the conversation.
He said quietly, “I live behind Wat Pathum Wanaram. A friend of mine, a rescue worker, was killed there. I’m going to visit this evening — to see what’s left.”
3. Meeting a Man from Behind Wat Pathum
We all perked up immediately.
“You lived right behind the temple?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “But not anymore. They expropriated the land about three months ago.”
“Completely cleared?” I asked.
“Yes. The land belongs to the Siam Cement Group now.”
“So you had to move?”
“I have a flat nearby already. But behind Wat Pathum, I had more than a hundred rental houses.”
We were all stunned.
“Are we talking to a millionaire right now?” I joked. “You must have received quite a compensation.”
He smiled faintly. “A hundred thousand baht per room.”
Ms. S. frowned. “That’s so little — in the heart of the city?”
He shrugged. “For over a hundred rooms, it’s still more than ten million altogether.”
He explained that they weren’t houses as we might imagine — but tiny rental rooms, three by three meters, two stories high, built decades ago on Crown Property Bureau land that he leased.
The first ones were made of wood; later, when timber became scarce, he replaced the walls with fiberboard.
Each room rented for about 1,000 baht a month.
When the government expropriated the land, compensation was paid per room — two rooms per house — so around 200,000 baht per building.
“In total, a little over a hundred rooms — about fifty houses,” he said.
“Since you lived behind Wat Pathum, you must have seen everything that happened in May?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t there. I was upcountry. I only returned recently. That’s why I’m going to visit today — to see it for myself.”
“How many people still live behind the temple?”
“Not many now,” he said. “Most have moved out. The expropriation cleared the area three months ago.”
Ms. P. then asked him something that brought another layer of history into the open.
“Along Klong Saen Saeb — there’s a house that juts out into the water with a sorrowful fig tree. Is that part of the old Phetchabun Palace?”
He smiled. “No, no. The palace never extended into the canal. I know that place very well. I was the one who helped level the land when they demolished Phetchabun Palace to build the World Trade Center — before it became CentralWorld.”
4. Before It Became CentralWorld
He continued, clearly carried by the memories.
In 1982, he said, he worked for the Crown Property Bureau, assigned to negotiate with the slum residents behind the palace to vacate the land — offering each household 70,000 baht in compensation.
“Back then, that was a lot of money,” he said. “You could start over.”
Afterwards, he was in charge of leveling the site for the Techapaibul Group, who had leased it to build the World Trade Center.
“That land was strange,” he said. “There was an old pond and a hill made of earth. Inside that hill were pillars, shrines — all sorts of things. When we dug, sometimes the bulldozer would hit a pillar and it would burst out of the soil.”
The old pond was even stranger.
“The surface looked like grass, but underneath — full of snakes. Not hundreds. Tens of thousands.”
He spread his hands. “There was everything — pit vipers, tree snakes, even pythons as thick as my thigh.”
“Sometimes we’d find dried mud depressions. At first I thought they were old ponds — but no, they were where giant snakes had coiled themselves. When the mud dried, it formed a hollow mold around them.”
He chuckled at our wide eyes. “It was horrifying then, but work is work. We just had to keep digging.”
Whenever his team unearthed a shrine or post, they would stop, light incense, make offerings, and continue the next day.
“Even after we finished leveling everything,” he said, “animals kept coming up — monitor lizards crawling out from cracks in the ground. We caught them and the workers ate them all.”
His wife tugged at his arm, reminding him of an appointment.
He smiled, reluctant to leave.
“If we weren’t rushing,” Ms. S. whispered to me, “I’d follow him straight back to Wat Pathum and see it all for myself.”
5. The Story of Mom Chao Thanat Siri
Listening to him reminded me of the story once told by Mom Rajawongse Thanat Siri Sawasdiwat, who described himself as “the man born in Phetchabun Palace, raised in Srapathum Palace, and married at Sukhothai Palace.”
Mom Thanat Siri once clarified the myths surrounding the palace.
He said that King Mongkut (Rama IV) had once used the grounds as a meditation retreat, with a small pavilion known as Kut, later turned into the spirit shrine of the palace.
When construction of the World Trade Center destroyed that pavilion, people began to speak of a “curse.”
“It isn’t true,” Mom Thanat Siri told the Post Today newspaper on May 25, 2010. “There was no curse. The tragedy came from the desecration of sacred ground — the pavilion where the King himself had meditated. That is the true misfortune.”
Mom Thanat Siri was a first cousin of Princess Suddhasirinatha, daughter of Prince Chudadhuj Dharadilok, the original owner of Phetchabun Palace.
He had also served as the executor of her estate.
He said he had personally warned the developer, Mr. Virul Techapaibul, not to demolish the shrine — but the warning went unheeded.
“They thought they could ward it off by placing the Trimurti statue in front of the mall,” he said, “but that’s not the way. The calamity came from arrogance — from forgetting reverence for the King.”
“People should study real history,” he said finally, “not just believe what’s passed along as rumor.”
6. From Phetchabun Palace to the World Trade Center
Listening to Mom Thanat Siri’s account brought back many memories from my own childhood.
This area had always fascinated me. Nearly forty years ago, there stood a glamorous department store with an escalator — the first I had ever seen — called Thai Daimaru.
My friends and I were still schoolgirls then. We would visit just to ride the escalators up and down, laughing in delight.
Back then, I never realized that the vast compound that later became CentralWorld had once been a palace.
I only knew it as the Intharachai Technical School, a place infamous for its fiery brawls among vocational students — typical of that era’s youth.
Reading Mom Thanat Siri’s interview made me curious. I decided to dig deeper into the origins of the place known as Phetchabun Palace.
It turned out that the land was originally Pathumwan Palace, built during the reign of King Mongkut (Rama IV) as a royal retreat.
It was constructed around the same time as Srapathum Palace and Wat Pathumwanaram Temple.
Pathumwan Palace was enormous; later, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) used part of the grounds for military purposes.
That section eventually became the site of today’s Royal Thai Police Headquarters.
During the reign of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), the entire palace complex was given to his younger half-brother, Prince Chudadhuj Dharadilok, when he returned from studying abroad.
From then on, Pathumwan Palace was renamed Phetchabun Palace, after the title of its new owner — Krom Khun Phetchabun Indarajaya (Prince Chudadhuj’s official name and title).
The prince passed away young, at only 31 years old in 1923, leaving the palace to his consort, Mom Chao Boonjirathorn Chudadhuj, who lived there until her own passing in 1980.
Prince Chudadhuj was the younger half-brother of King Vajiravudh through their mother, Queen Saovabha Phongsri.
When the King bestowed Pathumwan Palace upon him, it was meant as an enduring symbol of affection — yet no formal deed of transfer was ever issued.
Therefore, the property remained in the name of King Vajiravudh himself.
After the 1932 revolution, when Siam changed from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, all royal properties without formal private deeds were transferred to the Crown Property Bureau — the Office of the Crown Property of His Majesty the King.
Thus, Phetchabun Palace became part of those royal assets.
When Mom Chao Boonjirathorn passed away, the Bureau compensated her heirs — Princess Suddhasirinatha (former principal of Rajini School, married to Mom Chao Suvinij Kitiyakara) and Prince Waranondthawat (a former RAF pilot and Seri Thai resistance member, once married to Princess Galyani Vadhana).
They were compensated with monetary payment, after which the Bureau leased the land to the Techapaibul family to develop.
The Techapaibul’s Phetchabun Palace Company signed a lease with the Bureau to construct a massive commercial complex — the World Trade Center — on the 75-rai (about 30-acre) plot, which also included 4.5 rai belonging to the Intharachai Technical School.
The school was relocated: one branch became the Don Mueang Technical College and another the Intharachai College of Commerce in Ramkhamhaeng.
And so, one royal palace, once surrounded by lotus ponds and meditation shrines, was replaced by towers of glass and steel.
7. From World Trade Center to CentralWorld
Construction of the World Trade Center began in 1983 and the complex opened in 1989.
It comprised two anchor department stores — Zen and Isetan — and was hailed as a symbol of Bangkok’s modernization.
According to its lease with the Crown Property Bureau, Phetchabun Palace Co., Ltd. was required to complete both the shopping center and an adjacent hotel.
The agreement allowed a 30-year lease after completion, renewable twice for ten years each.
But the company never completed the hotel.
The 1997 Asian financial crisis devastated the Techapaibul business empire.
Their banks collapsed — Siam City Bank merged with others — leaving the World Trade Center as their last major holding.
Worse still, the company failed to pay property tax to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration for the years 1992–2000, violating the lease terms that made the tenant responsible for such taxes.
The Crown Property Bureau therefore terminated the contract and brought the case to court.
Eventually, a compromise was reached.
The lease was transferred to the Central Pattana Public Company Limited (CPN) — the Central Group — which, along with the Mall Group, bid to redevelop the project in 2004.
The center was renamed CentralWorld Plaza.
CPN finished the unbuilt portions, constructed the Skywalk pedestrian bridge connecting Chidlom and Siam BTS stations, and redesigned the entire complex.
In 2007, it reopened as the largest shopping mall in Thailand — and the second largest in Asia.
Tragically, on the very night that CentralWorld burned in the May 2010 unrest, it had just been awarded the international “Best of the Best” honor for retail design and development by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
It was a night of pride turned instantly into one of heartbreak.
As I thought of that, my mind drifted to the tranquil image of lotus ponds once reflecting the sky where the grand mall now stood — and I could not help but fall silent, offering a prayer for the countless living beings that had once shared that land before progress consumed them.
8. Janpen Restaurant — A Flower Amid Flames
Leaving the pork-leg shop, we planned to head back to the car and drive to survey wider areas of Bonkai and Klong Toei.
But since we were already near the pedestrian bridge, we decided to cross over to the opposite side of Rama IV, where the damage had been much worse.
Many buildings there were scorched and boarded up.
We wanted to see the location of the army’s bunkers, the shops burned during clashes, and the blackened patches where tires had been set on fire.
Walking toward the Thai–Belgium Bridge, we passed a PTT gas station — once an Esso station — which, Ms. P. explained, had originally been the office of the State Transport Organization (Ror Sor Por), an old state enterprise that had long been dissolved during Prime Minister Thaksin’s administration.
Its former headquarters near Rangnam Road had since become the King Power Complex.
We stopped in front of the Janpen Restaurant, which stood miraculously untouched amid the devastation.
Ms. P. explained, “The owner is Hainanese. She employs Hainanese workers too — treats them like family. During the riots, everyone helped protect the place. They begged both sides not to come near. Some even stood guard.”
It was remarkable. Buildings all around were torched, yet the restaurant and its lush green trees stood unharmed — a flower amid flames.
We could feel, almost palpably, the quiet power of solidarity and loyalty that had saved it.
Continuing on, we stopped before Lumpinee Boxing Stadium.
Ms. P. remarked, “Strange, isn’t it? The boxing stadium here, even though behind it was the site of the old Preparatory Military School.”
“The one that later became Suan Lum Night Bazaar?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
Curious, I later checked the history: that land — 120 rai next to Lumpini Park — was indeed owned by the Crown Property Bureau, once the grounds of the Preparatory Military Academy established by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V).
It had the same characteristics as the Klong Toei Port lands: prime property adjacent to a vast public park, and later targeted for development by large investors.
It reminded me how the planned “Klong Toei Complex Project,” during Thaksin’s government, had aimed to develop over 2,300 rai of port land — a scale beyond imagination.
9. The Strategic Importance of Bonkai
We stopped for coffee at a small franchise café from Chumphon Province, called Khao Thalu Coffee.
The owner said he had opened only three months before the chaos.
His front windows, once brand new, had been shattered by gunfire — bullets from both sides, he thought.
“I was lucky,” he said. “They didn’t loot anything inside. Maybe because it was in the soldiers’ line of fire.”
Walking back toward Ngam Duphli Road, we examined bullet marks on lampposts and shop walls.
One Western brand store had installed double-layered safety glass — the outer pane shattered, but the inner held firm.
We admired its resilience.
Oddly, while many buildings on the Ngam Duphli side had burned, the Bonkai market side across the street remained untouched.
Crossing the overpass near Suwansawasdi Alley, we saw thick soot still clinging beneath the bridge — evidence of massive tire fires below.
The area’s geography made its strategic role clear: Bonkai was the key connection between Rama IV and the old railway road.
It was both a transport corridor and a tactical refuge.
From testimonies of red-shirt participants themselves — in blogs and online posts — Bonkai served as a critical logistics route: for moving food, weapons, and men between the main rally at Ratchaprasong and safe zones.
It was also an escape path for the “black-clad” militant wing.
I had read one such account on a blog by a woman named Moui, who lived in Ngam Duphli.
After the violence subsided, she crossed over to Bonkai to talk with local residents out of curiosity and compassion, trying to understand what “the yellows inside the reds” meant — a phrase used by some red-shirt guards in their secret field notes.
Her blog, “Bonkai, June 5, 2010”, cited entries from a red-shirt volunteer’s diary describing operations in Bonkai from May 17–19, 2010.
It gave a haunting sense of how ordinary neighborhoods became battlefields.
Moui herself concluded sorrowfully:
“Everyone was a victim — on both sides.”
I remembered how, on Vesak Day just weeks earlier, I had met a young woman from Bonkai who had been trapped inside during the fighting.
She, too, spoke of the fear and confusion — and of how little outsiders truly understood.
10. Even Bonkai Loves the King
Ms. P. led us from the bridge down into the Bonkai market again, entering a small alley near the Bangkok Bank branch.
I noticed that this branch had survived — unlike many others across the city that had been burned.
Only its fence and ATM were damaged, while the Kasikorn Bank across the road was reduced to ashes.
According to accounts from red-shirt participants themselves, not all wanted destruction.
Some had tried to stop others from burning, fearing that fire would spread to their own homes — because, in truth, many protesters were local residents too.
In Bonkai, the “red” was not a single entity; it was intertwined with the community’s life.
The market itself was lively again when we visited.
I bought some fresh vegetables from a cart near a narrow alleyway leading into the inner settlement.
Prices were cheap, produce fresh — the familiar charm of urban slums everywhere.
A little farther down, I saw a small archway decorated with blinking lights.
On its pillar was a half-peeled red sticker reading “Stop Killing Citizens.”
I lifted my camera.
A woman nearby eyed me curiously.
I smiled and said lightly, “I’m practicing photography. Your gate looks beautiful.”
She hurried to explain, almost anxiously:
“This arch is where we put pictures of the King and Queen on Father’s Day and Mother’s Day.”
Her tone softened, almost pleading:
“You know… people here in Bonkai — we love the King too.”
Translated Compilation of 15 Parts
Authors: Kanya Panichkul · Kanya Leelalai · Ruedee Roengchai
Part 1: More Than We Thought, Deeper Than We Knew
Today, Ms. P. came to pick me up to visit the Bonkai area, where Ms. S. was waiting to meet us in front of the Bonkai community. Ms. P. was born and raised there before moving to Phra Khanong, though many of her relatives still live in Bonkai.
As we drove along Rama IV Road, I told Ms. P. that our goal was not to take sides but to listen — to understand what people here had experienced. We weren’t there as journalists or investigators, just as fellow citizens who wanted to help heal divisions.
Ms. P. began describing the area’s layout: Sukhumvit Road’s right-hand side — from Soi Pridi Banomyong to Nana — was once owned by noble families and officials, now full of expensive condos. The left-hand side, stretching toward Rama IV Road and Hualamphong, is mostly Crown Property land.
We drove past Channel 3, which had been burned during the protests. Ms. P. said, “I’ll take you through the old railway route — it used to be a bustling trading area before Rama IV was expanded.” Wooden homes still lined the road, giving a glimpse into the past.
When I recalled the 2008 Klong Toei market clashes that left two dead and hundreds injured, she explained that political influence and business interests had long entangled the area — especially the vast plots owned by the Port Authority of Thailand.
We agreed to meet Ms. S. before heading deeper into the communities.
Part 2: Stories from the Locals
Ms. S. was waiting for us in front of the Siam Commercial Bank branch. Ms. P. greeted familiar faces, including an old barber who had once cut her father’s hair.
Inside a small eatery, the owner, “Ah-sor,” told us how the red shirts had closed off the street at 2 a.m. on May 13, piling tires and parking taxis across the road. When the clashes started, she closed her shop and watched through a small metal gap as chaos unfolded — explosions, gunfire, black smoke, and fear.
She said she was lucky her shop wasn’t burned down. It took days to clean away the soot. “Each house had to clean up on their own,” she said.
At the next table, a man joined in. “My home was behind Wat Pathum Wanaram,” he said quietly. “A friend of mine — a rescue worker — was killed there. I’m going to pay respects this evening.”
Part 3: Meeting the Man Behind Wat Pathum
The man turned out to be a former Crown Property Bureau officer who had once overseen the relocation of the Pathumwan slum. “I owned about a hundred small rental rooms — three-by-three meters, two stories. The government paid me 100,000 baht per room when they reclaimed the land,” he said.
He added that he had also supervised the leveling of the old Phetchabun Palace grounds, which later became the World Trade Center (now CentralWorld). “It wasn’t easy. There were old pillars, shrines — even massive pits filled with snakes,” he recalled.
Part 4: From Phetchabun Palace to CentralWorld
He told us the Crown Property Bureau had hired his team in 1982 to clear the land for the Techapaibul Group’s World Trade Center project. “There were so many snakes. Tens of thousands,” he said. “When we dug up the old ponds, we’d see the ground move — snakes everywhere. Pythons as thick as my thigh.”
When they came across old shrine posts buried underground, he ordered workers to stop and perform rites of apology before continuing. “Even after the land was leveled, animals kept surfacing,” he said. “Monitor lizards crawling out of cracks in the earth.”
He smiled wryly as his wife called him away.
Part 5: The Story of Mom Chao Thanat Siri
Mom Rajawongse Thanat Siri, a descendant of the royal family, once clarified the rumors surrounding Phetchabun Palace. He explained that the supposed “curse” wasn’t real — the misfortunes that befell the site stemmed from disrespect when the old meditation pavilion of King Rama IV was destroyed during construction.
He said he had even warned the developers but was ignored. “Superstition aside,” he said, “the true misfortune lies in forgetting respect for our history and our kings.”
Part 6: From Phetchabun Palace to the World Trade Center
Researching further, I found that the palace was originally part of King Rama IV’s Pathumwan Palace complex. Later, King Rama VI gave it to Prince Chudadhuj Dharadilok, who named it Phetchabun Palace.
After 1932, the land reverted to the Crown Property Bureau. When the last royal resident passed away, the Techapaibul Group leased the land to build the World Trade Center — covering 75 rai (about 30 acres).
Part 7: From the World Trade Center to CentralWorld
The project began in 1983 and opened in 1989 with ZEN and Isetan as its flagship stores. But after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the owners defaulted on taxes, and the Crown Property Bureau repossessed the lease.
In 2004, Central Pattana (CPN) took over and redeveloped the complex as CentralWorld. Ironically, on the same night it was burned in 2010, it received an international “Best of the Best” design award.
I couldn’t help feeling sorrow for the countless lives and histories buried beneath the modern skyline.
Part 8: Janpen Restaurant — A Flower Amid the Flames
Walking along Rama IV, we stopped at Janpen Restaurant — still intact despite fires consuming nearby buildings. Ms. P. explained that the owner, a Hainanese employer, treated staff like family. When chaos erupted, workers defended the restaurant together.
The surviving greenery and unburned walls stood out like “a flower amid the flames.”
Part 9: Bonkai’s Strategic Importance
A café owner showed us bullet holes in his walls — remnants of crossfire between troops and red shirts. He was lucky; his glass storefront had just been replaced after the fighting.
From interviews and a blog by local writer “Moui,” we learned Bonkai had become a key supply and escape route for red-shirt guards — a tactical link between Rama IV Road and the Ratchaprasong protest zone.
Moui, a resident of nearby Ngam Duphli, later wrote that “everyone here — red, yellow, soldier, civilian — was a victim of circumstance.”
Part 10: Even Bonkai Loves the King
In the market, I stopped to photograph a small archway with a red sticker reading “Stop Killing People.” A woman quickly explained, “This arch is for photos of His Majesty and the Queen on Father’s and Mother’s Day.”
Her tone made clear what she wanted us to understand:
“The people of Bonkai love the King too.”
Part 11: Talking with an Elder of Bonkai
We met an elderly man, over seventy, preparing noodle ingredients in the alley. He had lived there for fifty years. During the conflict, he stayed behind — too afraid to abandon his home despite choking smoke and fear.
He admitted that some locals joined the red shirts, while others pleaded with them not to burn the flats. “If they burned, everything would go,” he sighed.
For Bonkai’s old residents, fire is the greatest fear.
Part 12: From Ground Homes to High Flats — A Community That Endures
Bonkai began as a Chinese migrant community, likely dating back to laborers who helped dig canals and ponds for King Rama IV’s palaces.
As the area became crowded, the National Housing Authority built flats and relocated residents. Many families, like Uncle Chek’s, kept small food stalls at ground level while living in flats above — a balance between old and new lives.
The rent-controlled flats became valuable assets, symbols of stability and dignity for Bangkok’s working poor.
The relationship between the royal estates (the landowners) and the Chinese tenants, I realized, wasn’t merely economic — it was a bond of mutual dependence, rooted in history and care.
Part 13: The Point of No Compromise
Uncle Chek told us: “The red shirts said they’d burn the flats. Police didn’t come. Soldiers couldn’t. We had to defend ourselves.”
As red shirts tried to seize high-rise flats as strongholds, residents barricaded entrances with tables and trash bins. “It wasn’t bravery,” said one. “It was survival.”
When police refused to help — saying they lacked orders — locals armed themselves. “It was like war,” they said. “But we saved our homes.”
Part 14: Stories from Flat 3
We met “Uncle Ping,” a shopkeeper who had organized a defense team. “We’re just honest people,” he said. “The newcomers, the renters — they didn’t understand this place. When they started waving red flags, we didn’t mind. But when talk came of burning flats, we had to act.”
He spent over 100,000 baht supplying food, drink, and security for his volunteers. “You can’t put a price on protecting your home.”
Despite everything, Uncle Ping had made peace. “Life goes on,” he smiled.
Part 15: Many Truths Still Waiting
There are still untold stories in Bonkai — especially from the back alleys near Polo and Ruamrudee roads, where residents formed neighborhood watch teams to protect themselves.
We planned to return but had to leave for Klong Toei, another area long entangled in Bangkok’s struggles — dense, poor, yet resilient.
I once knew workers there decades ago, weaving cloth by day and laughing through hardship by night. I remembered something true even now:
Among the poor are some bad people — but the poor are not bad people. Their homes may be small, but their hearts are vast.
Translated by GPT-5
