A very old and unusual cemetery

Bangkok, Day 29

Today's adventure is to head to the Wat Don Cemetery. Yes I know, I know - that seems a bit doom and gloom but again for those that know me, you know I have a bit of a thing for family history and visiting graveyards (Find a Grave instead of Find my Phone is quite an accurate summary for me).

Anyway, we have heard and read about this place, so we thought as it was close by we'd pop over - trust us to go to the less travelled tourist spots eh?

18 Dec 2024

But before we got there we traversed a number of little streets and roads, stopping every so often so that R could check the Google map on his phone to see where we actually where.

Of course, as usual, we found all manner of interesting things, where life and people were just getting on with their everyday tasks and chores. I'm finding that this is something I'm appreciating much more, now that we are retired and also because we are not on the same time clock as we used to be. We are both taking things slower but appreciating everything around us more. In the past, I was probably quite guilty of rushing from one thing to another when we were on holiday or in a new place, but it's a very different mindset now - oh don't get me wrong, I still have a plan of sorts but it's much more fluid and apt to change on a whim these days!

Anyway, back to the point, Lizzie! We saw some fabulous architecture with the houses - I don't know the actual age or era of these styles, but it looked quite French colonial to me, but just old and charming!

We (by that, I shall apportion blame to R, our navigator), somehow managed to completely overshoot the route we where supposed to be going to the cemetery and as it was hot (it's always hot!), we decided we should probably just get some lunch and a rest and then resume our hunt for the cemetery.

We stopped off in a little off-street restaurant (KK Cuisine), which looked quite busy and offered some respite from the heat. I had an amazing soup of noodles, crispy pork and wantons, and R had a not-too-spicy chicken and rice dish. The total bill was £4.34

After being rested and refreshed, we were ready to seek out the graveyard!

The Teochew Cemetery is a large cemetery in Bangkok's Sathon District. Covering an area of about 42 acres, it was also known as the Wat Don Graveyard (or Cemetery) and was widely believed to be haunted. The cemetery was founded in 1899 and consists of adjacent cemeteries managed by three organisations, namely the Tio Chew Association of Thailand, the Poh Teck Tung Foundation and the Hainan Dan Family Association. In 1996, the district administration began renovating the derelict site, and part of the cemetery now also serves as a public park.

Now, where do I start with this? Ok, so first, it's very, very old and is no longer used for burials. It is also very, very overgrown and neglected in the actual graveyard parts. If you think of Craigton Cemetery in Glasgow, you will get a bit of an idea of what I mean.

The central areas and parts of the cemetery are fairly well maintained and looked after and whilst we we there, there were workers doing quite a lot of work on one of the decorative structures (possibly in preparation for Chinese New Year?).

There were also several little areas that were sort of sectioned off and where people were sitting having their lunch, some possibly drinking with some friends (as it was kind of loud and laughing) and some performing karaoke. Yes, dear readers, you read that correctly. I have never, ever in my whole life imagined seeing the likes before. I mean, can you imagine singing along to some pop song blasting out in the middle of a cemetery? Perhaps it's a way to continue family gatherings with lost loved ones?

I mean those poor bodies, even in death they cannot get some peace and quiet, or perhaps that was the rowdy section of the graveyard and they quite like a bit of a party atmosphere... (Russ Abbot).

However, perhaps it's a culture thing, and this is something that is normal and we are just not used to it in the UK, so maybe I'm being unfair. It was just quite unusual for us to witness.

On our way back to the apartment, we decided that we deserved a couple of ice-creams to get over the unusualness of the what we had seen in the cemetery and these bad boys from Mixue hit the spot and didn't disappoint (total cost for both £1.64!).

Our rough route map for today...

Bangkok, Thailand