Charoenkrung Road

Bangkok's first modern road exists because foreign consuls petitioned King Rama IV in 1861: they were falling ill, they claimed, for lack of anywhere to ride horses and take carriage air. The King built them a road; Thais just called it 'New Road' for the next century.

Its century-old shophouses and warehouses are now the Bangkok Creative District: galleries in former printing houses, cocktail bars in gold-dealers' vaults, and the TCDC design centre inside the old General Post Office.