The Street Vendors of Tha Tian: How clean should Bangkok become?

Picture by I-Ta Tsai

Did you ever mind about the street vendors around Tha Tian market and pier or around Tha Chang pier in Bangkok? Did you feel, that they occupy your footpath? Well Bangkoks Metropolitan Administration minds. Bangkok City Hall ordered vendors at Tha Tian and Tha Chang to move to other sales venues arranged by the administration, as Bangkok Post reported. They should move to Thewes market, Sanam Luang 2 market, Talat Phlu market and a market in front of Rat Burana district office. According to Pol Mai Gen Wichai Sangprapai, an advisor to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, there are about 500 old and new vendors in the Tha Tian and Tha Chang areas who had erected stalls on footpaths for a long time. And why should they leave now? Because: The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has launched a campaign to tidy footpaths and improve the landscape around historic Rattanakosin Island to restore beauty to the area as part of the cultural heritage of Bangkok.

Well, did you ever have the idea, that street vendors are not part of the cultural heritage of Bangkok? Did you read "Four reigns", a novel by Thai author Kukrit Pramoj, and did this give you the idea, that there were no street vendors around the Royal Palace?

Pol Mai Gen Wichai of course has arguments. "I believe they will understand and cooperate because footpaths are public spaces for everyone to use, not for someone to occupy and make personal gains."

Well, also disabled people don't like it, when street vendors take over the foot paths. That's an argument.

But is Bangkok not also famous for the quality of its streetfood?

Picture by 246-You
Streetfood at Tha Tian

Therefore: Let's watch what happens now. The vendors of course are protesting against the plan of City Hall. A group led by Watchara Nimnak turned up at Government House to submit a complaint letter to General Prayuth Chan-ocha, chief of Thailands military junta, as Bangkok Post reports.


Get an impression from the area around Tha Thian Pier:
Good Morning old Bangkok: In the Neighborhood of Wat Pho