Sam Yan Bangkok: Samyan Mitrtown, Chula and Banthat Thong

Sam Yan Bangkok is the student district: Chulalongkorn University owns most of the land between Siam and Hua Lamphong, and the campus, the shophouses it rents out and the parks it has built give the area a different feel from either neighbour. In the last few years it has grown a 24-hour mall, a food street that fills nightly, and a new park. Hua Lamphong, the century-old railway terminus at the southern end, is the historic anchor.

Samyan Mitrtown

Samyan Mitrtown is a mid-sized mall and office tower on the corner of Rama IV and Phaya Thai roads, joined by tunnel to MRT Sam Yan. It is built for students: a large basement supermarket and food zone, a co-working library open around the clock, a cinema and a lot of bubble tea. The food hall on the lower level has regional Thai stalls and decent Japanese chains, and it is one of the few places in the city where you can get a cheap sit-down meal at three in the morning. Check the venue for which parts stay open overnight.

Banthat Thong food street

Banthat Thong Road runs north from Rama IV along the west edge of the campus, and in the evening it is a continuous run of restaurants, dessert shops and queues. The pattern is old shophouse kitchens with new neon: grilled pork neck, Isaan sausages, pork knuckle rice, oyster omelettes, wonton noodles, mango sticky rice and Thai-style toast with sweet dips. Most places open late afternoon and stay busy until late. Expect to queue at the famous ones on weekend nights or go early on a weekday. The road is on the city's street food circuit and has its own section in Bangkok street food neighbourhoods.

Sam Yan Bangkok's campus and parks

Chulalongkorn's campus is open to walk through, with century-old Thai-Western buildings around the central lawn. On the east side, Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park (Chula Centenary Park, or Uthayan 100 Pi) is a modern sloping park designed to hold rainwater, with a raised walkway over wetland planting; it is a good evening run or sit. Suan Luang Sam Yan, nearer Mitrtown, is a smaller park with a lawn and a pavilion.

Behind Siam Square, the old Sam Yan market area has been rebuilt as Suan Luang and Sam Yan community spaces, but the surviving sois still hold old-school Thai-Chinese restaurants.

Hua Lamphong and Wat Hua Lamphong

Hua Lamphong railway station opened in 1916, an Italian-designed hall with a half-dome glass roof and the Thai railway's original clock. Since 2023 most long-distance trains leave from Krung Thep Aphiwat in the north of the city, but suburban and ordinary trains still run from Hua Lamphong, so the hall is alive rather than a museum. There is also a small railway exhibition. Across Rama IV, Wat Hua Lamphong is a busy temple with a merit-making tradition of donating coffins to the unclaimed dead, and a short walk east is the edge of Chinatown.

Getting there

• MRT Blue Line: Sam Yan (direct to Mitrtown) and Hua Lamphong, one stop apart. Silom MRT and BTS Sala Daeng are a fifteen-minute walk from the campus's southern end.
• BTS National Stadium and Siam are a short walk from the northern end of Banthat Thong.
• Khlong Saen Saep boats do not reach Sam Yan; the nearest pier is Sapan Hua Chang near Siam.
• Rama IV Road buses run the length of the district.