The area around Siam Square has become the undisputed center for shopping in Bangkok. It stretches for a km or two from MBK-Center in the West to Central Chidlom in the East. Most, but not all, shopping malls and department stores are close the the skytrain stations of Siam Square and Chitlom.

While having the largest number of big shopping malls in Thailand, the area is not overly appealing. It would be, for example, not quite suitable to compare it with Orchard Road in Singapore. While you can pleasantly stroll along Orchard Road, the same can not be said for Rama I Road and Phloenchit Road in Bangkok. The reason, it looks so awful and depressing to be under the platforms and tracks of the skytrain system. While having obviously benefited Bangkok commuters, the design and aesthetic appeal of the skytrain pillars and tracks leave much to be desired. Maybe just in the area between Siam Square and Chitlom stations, the whole structure could be painted (at a price, we know) with some graffiti artwork thrown in.

We will start from MBK-Center and take you along Rama I Road and Ratchaprasong Intersection towards Central Chitlom.

MBK-Center is a multistoried building housing about 200 small shops and eateries. The upper floor is dedicated to big furniture outlets. It is located in the Southwestern corner of the Rama I-Phayathai Road Intersection. Since quite a few years now, MBK (still best known under its original name of MahBoonKhrong) must be the most visited shopping center in Bangkok. It is very popular with Thai people and caters definitively to the ‘common man and woman’. Products for sale include : clothes and fashion items, leather, jewelry, electronics, mobile phones, furniture etc. It also houses a 4-storey department store (Tokyu). You can easily reach MBK-Center by the skytrain : get off at National Stadium station, or stroll on the walkway from Siam Square.

[There is one big walkway up in the sky from Chitlom skytrain station up to National Stadium station, no need to walk at street level]
The Pathumwan Princess Hotel is housed within the same complex as MBK-Center, and offers a good location when you are on a shopping trip in Bangkok.

Coming from MBK-Center and crossing Phaya Thai road, you can enter Siam Square proper. Siam Square, located south of Siam Square skytrain station, features a few hundred mostly small shops. A few small streets intersect the various shopping areas, some of which are actually covered.

There are small restaurants, fruit drink bars, coffee shops. But Siam Square is best known for its apparel and fashion (mostly local Thai produce) outlets, that are very popular with Thai youngsters. As a matter of fact, you will hardly notice any ‘adults’ in this shopping area, but a lot of Thai teenagers and university students. Siam Square shopping area is actually located on land belonging to Chulalongkorn University.

Hard Rock Cafe is located on Siam Square Soi 11.

In the Siam Square area, you will also find the Chulalongkorn University Book Center. It is located in an office building, called WithayaKit, that is the single largest building on that side of Rama I Road, and located somewhat away from the main street. If you are looking for scientific books or computer related books, it is a good place to visit. Of course, most books are in Thai language.

Crossing Rama I road, opposite Siam Square, you find Siam Center and Siam Discovery Center. Besides regular shops, you can find Mc Donald’s, Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, Asia Books etc. in these low-rise shopping buildings. It is also the place where Thai teenagers come to see and be seen.

Next to Siam Center is the Siam Paragon, a giant new shopping complex. Walking further eastwards from Siam Paragon, you will pass an old but still active temple, located in the midst of all this urban development and shopping activity : Wat Pathum Wanaram. We recommend that you have a short walk inside the temple complex. There is not a lot to see, although the Ubosoth of Wat Pathum Wanaram is quite attractive. It is relatively quiet though inside the compound, and it is interesting to see all the structures surrounding the temple. Maybe a good place to sit for 15 minutes and have a bottle of water.

Leaving Wat Pathum Wanaram we have another giant shopping complex, Central World Plaza. The actual Central World Plaza is located on Rajadamri Road, and located a bit away from Rama I. It was originally named World Trade Center. Now with Siam Paragon almost next door, and the location of Central World Plaza somewhat away from the skytrain line (that is the location became less optimal), there is a lot of reconstruction going on at this moment and a whole new building is being constructed at the side of Rama I Road, and connected to the skytrain walkway. Central World Plaza is a multistoried very large complex and contains no less than two department stores : Zen (a Central Department store) and Isetan. Furthermore, there are lots of mostly large shops. The place is very spacious, but you will need to walk a lot if you do your shopping in there. During the colder months of the year (mostly november till february) the various breweries of Thailand, have large beer gardens in front of Central World Plaza, that are very popular. It is also a favored place to see in the new year at New Year’ Eve. Check out our recent review of Central World.

If you reach Central World Plaza, you actually reached what is called the Ratchaprasong Intersection. On the other side of Rajadamri Road, opposite Central World Plaza, there is a Big C to the left, and Naraphand, a shopping complex solely dedicated to Thai arts and crafts.

At the corner of Phloenchit Road and Rajadamri Road, you will find the very upmarket Gaysorn. Compared to Siam Paragon and Central World Plaza, it is small in size, but just to give you an idea of what is on offer, the following world known companies have outlets there : Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Gucci, Christian Lacroix, Dior, Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada, Celine, Emporio Armani, Burberry, Loewe, Mont Blanc, Ermanogildo Zegna, Moschino, Bulgari, Davidoff, Swarovski etc. When we visited the place one early evening, Gaysorn was mostly deserted, and there were possibly more security personnel than customers. But our guess is that it is a good place for celebrities and politicians to do their shopping, since the place is small, and can be much better secured than huge places like Siam Paragon and Central World Plaza.

Crossing Phloenchit Road from Gaysorn, there is the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel, and two smaller long-established department stores, the Bangkok Erawan, and the Amarin. Walking on the same side of Phloenchit road as Gaysorn and going eastwards, we will come to Central Chitlom. Central Chitlom is very conveniently connected now to the Chitlom skytrain station, and is indeed very easy to reach nowadays. It can be called the flagship department store of the Central Group. Central Chitlom is another classy shopping center in the area, somewhat away from Siam Square. There are no less than 7 floors to wander through, and the complex also contains a large supermarket.

Thank : thaiwebsites.com

There used to be a very large shopping complex at Rajaprasong Intersection called World Trade Center. A few years back the property was acquired by the Central Group, the largest developer of department stores in Thailand. While World Trade Center was quite an adequate name, the shopping complex was renamed Central World Plaza, and lately seems to go under the abbreviated name Central World.

The shopping center has been renovated and expanded (works are still going on) and is being relaunched and rebranded as the largest lifestyle shopping complex in Southeast Asia. It is not quite clear that Bangkok needed an even more expanded Central World, but that is what we (and foreign visitors who come to shop) got. Besides the shopping experience, there is also an office complex, and an hotel under construction. One can not escape the impression that the management of the Central Group could not live with the success of its main competitor, the Mall Group, after they developed the successful Emporium Shopping Complex, and the recently (end 2005) opened Siam Paragon. Siam Paragon in particular got a lot of press as being the largest venue in town. Now, Central World can reclaim that accolade.

As said, under the name World Trade Center, this shopping complex has been around for quite a while, and the basic structure of the building could not really be altered. From the outside, Central World looks like a rectangular large box. There is not much beauty involved or architectural achievement. Admittedly there is still some construction going on between the skytrain and the main body of the complex, and from models available, this will make the structure a bit more eyecatching.

In front of Central World there is a large (by Bangkok standards) plaza. With New Year’s Eve (not in 2006 due to security problems) probably the largest gathering of Thai people can be seen there, seeing out the old year. Especially during the ‘cold’ season, the plaza turns into an enormous ‘beer garden’.

Central World can be accessed at ground level from Rajadamri Road. This certainly was not convenient enough and two connections were created towards the skytrain that passes the Rajaprasong intersection to its main station at Siam Square. There is a long walking way from Chitlom station to Siam Square on the skytrain platform. When coming from Chitlom (closest) and walking towards Siam Square, one can turn left into the ‘Sky Walk’ connecting with Central World.

The Sky Walk really has been an excellent idea. It runs (behind a glass wall) along the lenght of Central World, with a good view on one side of Rajadamri road and the traffic, and entries towards Zen Department Store, and Central World proper on the other side. Zen Department Store (Zen is a separate brand name for this Department Store, operated by Central) is the first store you can enter. On the opposite end of Central World is another Department Store, called Isetan. Isetan is part of a Japanese chain of department stores. Unfortunately, when walking from the skytrain into Central World, one is not provided with a small map or any other documentation that may help you in navigating this huge shopping mall. Some guidance is truly needed, otherwise within a few minutes, you will not have any idea as to where you are. Just remember that Zen is at the skytrain end as an orientation. Just get a little booklet with maps of the shops at ground level, before starting your exploration.

A booklet we obtained mentions that there are more than 500 shops at Central World, and no less than 50 restaurants. Famous international brands and Thai brands are well represented. Furthermore, there are quite a few smaller local brand outlets. Generally the stores are large. As is often the case in such a large shopping complex, Central World looks less than crowded, especially when you visit the upper floors.

Some highlights :
Supersports (really large shop) selling all kinds of sporting equipment and apparel is located on the 3rd floor. We are unhappy to report, that as many of its competitors, this shop does not sell regular standard bicycles, but only the ubiquitous mountain bikes.

Power Buy offering all kinds of electrical goods, is located one floor higher.
There is really big Toys R Us store on the 6th floor.

SFW World Cinema at the time of our visiting was not yet fully operational, and is located on the 8th floor.

The 7th Floor houses the Central Food Hall. This seems to be a crossbreed between a regular (with a lot of gourmet food) supermarket, and a standard food hall, with smaller outlets and restaurants where you can have a meal. If you only intend to shop for groceries, the location is not really ideal. As a guideline for prices, we noted that the Salad Bar sells salads at 18 baht per 100 grams. Comparative prices at other locations (Foodland 7 baht ; Tops 12 baht ; Emporium and Siam Paragon 25 baht).

B2S (Central brand) is located on the Isetan side of the shopping complex. We remember reading an article about how big a bookstore this was, so we needed to check it our, and came back rather disappointed. B2S is located on three floors (ground level to third floor). The ground level offers a good selection of music CDs, movie DVDs, and a True Internet Cafe. The second level offers mostly stationery. The third floor houses a large bookstore, though we did not have the impression it was larger than the Kinokuniya bookstore at Siam Paragon. However, if you are a book reader, we think you will not really be impressed.

There is a large collection of tabletop books (art and design, architecture, fashion, graphic design), travel books, computer books and the like, both in Thai and English language. However, literature left much to be desired. We saw a whole lot of John Grisham and Michael Connelly books, which is quite OK, but we failed to notice any interesting display of recent fiction and non-fiction. It looks like a statistical approach is followed in this store. See what is proven to be popular, then put hundreds of paperback copies of those books in store a few months later. Not exactly a store where you may go to have a look to see what’s new. In our opinion, the Kinokuniya Stores and even Asia Books have little competition to fear.

We did not fully explore either Zen Department Store or Isetan Department Store. Let’s just indicate that both of these department stores offer an upscale shopping experience, with Isetan more into Japanese products. Since October 2007, Zen also houses a branch of True Fitness.

Just a selection of brand names available at Central World :
Rolex, Swarovski, Tissot, Adidas Originals, Calvin Klein, Daniel Hechtler, FCUK, Liz Claiborne, Pena, Bata, Marks and Spencer, Apple Center, Guy Laroche, Playboy, Benetton, Chaps, Guess, Hush Puppies, Kipling, Morgan, Esprit, Giordano, Clarks, Nokia, AIS, DTAC, Starbucks, Auntie Anne’s, Toys “R” Us, Modernform, Panasonic, Dapper, Lacoste, Swatch etc.
[in our opinion, there are less shops, but the concentration of very well known apparel and fashion brands is higher at Emporium Shopping Complex]