The Digital Park Area

Bangkok, Day 14

My goodness it has already been 2 weeks since we departed Glasgow and that time seems to have just flown by, and yet it feels like we have already seen and done so much, but we still have loads of things we want to see. Spoiler alert: we are going to be in a different area of Bangkok in the near future, so we are leaving some things to cover until we are in our next location.

Next on our Bangkok treasure map is to scout out the 'True Digital Park' area of Bangkok. To get here we hopped on the BTS Sukhumvit line (light green) from Thong Lo to the BTS Punnawithi stop. There is a covered walkway from the station straight to the Digital Park complex which is brilliant.

Oh boy oh boy - this is a big and pretty awesome place! It's got absolutely everything you need. It's primarily aimed at technology and start-up companies, but it has office space, retail space, living space, conference spaces, sports areas, lots of restaurants, outdoor events in the evenings, etc and is a whole ecosystem of its own. I'd originally come across this area through some videos from YouTubers that we follow: Side Trip Life -a video of the area and another video covering the area from Project Bangkok and Global Travelmate.

The prices for the accommodation are much cheaper in this location as it is slightly further out from the main touristy and central areas of Bangkok but saying that, it's really easy to reach the touristy areas via the nearby BTS station, so I think this could be a good location for a long term stay if you are not too fussed or bothered to not be right in the thick of things. It's also an area that is attracting the young digital crowd - although I'm sure the 'older digital nomads' are accepted too!

It is utterly fabulous and is embracing the whole digital aspect through its careful design. I especially loved the digital technology that was covering the walls, glass meeting rooms, flooring, building pillars and even lots of the building signage. This makes it so much easier to maintain and keep up to date when it's all digital rather than in a print form. Access to certain member areas was all through digital means, and a barrier, but there were also several reception-type areas. I also loved the plants throughout the spaces - it was vibrant and thriving, and they have a very good handle on how to promote and showcase the place.

For lunch we went to the food court area where there were lots of stall vendors. You need to purchase a card and load it with some money but if you don't spend it all (and we didn't), then you can get a refund on the money left on the card.

Top Tip 1: whilst a lot of the vendors have the English names of dishes on their menus, not all of them have this, so if you are wondering how you are going to ask for the dish you want, just take a photo and show them the photo of the dish. In my case, I got a very tasty pad Thai dish.

Top Tip 2: Another thing we have discovered also, is that you are best to get your food order in just before the lunchtime crowds descend into the areas as it went from quite quiet to being super busy and hectic in a very short space of time. So now R starts to get antsy about 11.40am if we are near a food court as he knows it's usually about to get very busy with people everywhere!

We stopped off at one of the retail stalls on our way back home and picked up a few dishes for our evening meal and of course we had to get a couple of little treats too - all in the name of research you understand!

And to try and offset our guilty treat pleasures, I (not R!) have been going swimming after we get back to the apartment from our explorathons....

3 Dec 2024

Bangkok, Thailand