reader Posted February 9, 2019 Posted February 9, 2019 From CNN Travel (7 Feb.) A display of mooncakes for sale on Bangkok's Pracha Rat Bamphen Road. his neighborhood lacks the frothy, bustling, gigantic sprawl and saturated neon of the capital's frenetic, 200-year-old Chinatown on Yaowarat Road along the Chao Phraya River, five miles (eight kilometers) away. It's also missing Chinese architecture, such as Yaowarat's temples, shrines, dragon latticework and antique buildings dating back to the late 1700s, when Bangkok's earliest Chinese merchants and settlers moved into the area. Instead, Pracha Rat Bamphen's small, unique lures include cafe-sized restaurants offering classic dishes from China's Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, which are difficult to find in the city's traditional Chinatown. From Yunnan to Bangkok In China, during the 1960s and '70s, the communist regime of Chairman Mao Zedong exiled some intellectuals and other rivals south to Yunnan so they couldn't influence Beijing's political struggles. These exiles joined Yunnan's indigenous minority ethnic groups in the mountainous province bordering Myanmar (Burma) and Laos, and together influenced the creation of recipes different from elsewhere in China. Some of those now elderly Chinese, their offspring and others recently began traveling from Yunnan to live in or visit Bangkok, and now often reside or eat along Pracha Rat Bamphen Road instead of Chinatown. Other Chinese immigrants are moving to this road from Chengdu city and elsewhere in central Sichuan province, famous for its fiery, spiced meals. Continues with pics https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/bangkok-new-chinatown/index.html ggobkk and vinapu 2 Quote
