Street Art, Charoen Krung Road

Charoen Krung Road, Bangkok’s oldest paved street, carries a run of large-scale murals through Bang Rak district — free to view, no fixed hours, concentrated on Soi Charoen Krung 28, 30, 32, Soi Vanich and Songwat Road. Most of the art dates from the 2016 Bukruk Urban Arts Festival and the years after it.

Built in 1864 under King Mongkut (Rama IV), Charoen Krung was Bangkok’s first road built for wheeled traffic rather than boats, and it drew Chinese, Muslim, Portuguese and other foreign merchants who left behind shophouses, warehouses and places of worship still standing today. That layered, multicultural streetscape is what the mural project uses as its canvas. Soi 32, near the old General Post Office, carries the densest run of large pieces; Soi 30 centres on Warehouse 30, a converted row of 1940s shophouses now holding cafes, boutiques and gallery space. Alex Face’s one-eyed, rabbit-eared “Mardi” character recurs across several walls, alongside Bonus TMC’s cartoonish bears and tigers, Roa’s monochrome animal studies, and black-and-white bone figures by Lolay. New pieces appear and old ones fade or get painted over, so the exact lineup shifts year to year.

Street vendors set up stalls against many of the Soi 32 walls during the day, which blocks a good portion of the art from view — the murals only become fully visible once the vendors pack up in the mid-afternoon. Traffic on Charoen Krung itself is heavy and pavements are narrow in places, so most of the walking happens inside the quieter sois rather than on the main road. The area sits close to the Chao Phraya riverside, and a walk that starts at the street art can continue naturally toward the river warehouses and old trading houses nearby.

Insider Tip: Warehouse 30 (Soi Charoen Krung 30) is airconditioned and has a coffee shop — a good place to break up the walk between murals on a hot afternoon.

Watch out: Come after 3pm. Earlier in the day, food stalls and parked motorbikes obscure a lot of the ground-level artwork on Soi 32.

Nearby in the same Bang Rak district are the Gem and Jewelry Museum on Suriyawong and the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple on Silom Road, both worth combining with a street art walk.