Spiritual Sathorn and the Teochew Cemetery

Sathorn is one of Bangkok's fifty districts and a major part of the downtown CBD. With towering skyscrapers, expensive condo towers, shops, malls, restaurants, and major international company headquarters, it's one of the last places in Bangkok you might expect to have a secret spiritual side.

I took the MRT to Silom Station, then set out on foot down Sathorn Road. It was a bright sunny day, but since it's technically winter, the weather was relatively cool, and it was a pleasant walk.

First, I passed by the Chong Nonsi Canal Park, a tiny city park located alongside and atop bridges spanning the Chong Nonsi Canal. Spanning 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi) on both sides of the canal, the park is the longest and narrowest city park in Bangkok.

I crossed the busy road via the park, then made my way down the sidewalk on a 20-or-so minute walk to the Java Mosque. The old Indonesian-style masjid dates back to the reign of King Rama IV. In 1946, Haji Muhammad Soleh bin Hasan, a Javanese trader, donated 500 square meters of his own land in Bangkok to build a mosque for his community.

The mosque was built in traditional Javanese architectural style with a three-tiered pyramid roof and was painted green, the symbolic color of Islam. The design was meant to resemble the Great Mosque of Kauman in Yogyakarta (albeit in a much smaller scale).

Out back is a cemetery a small plot of land dotted with dozens of hand-painted wooden grave markers.

In Thailand, a Buddhist country, it's most common to cremate the dead. There are a few rare exceptions. The Christians (who have their own cemetery and a graveyard at the back of Christ Church), the Muslims (who build graveyards behind their mosques like this one), and the Chinese community.

That wasn't the cemetery I had come to visit, though. A few minutes later, I reached my destination, Wat Don Graveyard, also known as the Teochew Cemetery.

Founded in 1899 by Teochew migrants, the cemetery behind Wat Don is a large one made up of traditional Chinese graves. The graves are typically horseshoe-shaped, with curved stone walls that cradle the burial site and face outward according to feng shui principals meant to bring protection and good fortune to descendants of the deceased.

During festivals such as Qingming (the "Tomb-Sweeping Festival"), families return to clean the graves, burn incense and joss paper, and leave food and drink similar to Dia de los Muertos.

In 1996, the cemetery, which had become rundown and overgrown, was converted by the city into a public park. Today, it's home to walking and jogging trails and a public open-air weightlifting gym.

Apparently, the cemetery is one of the premier birdwatching spots in Bangkok, but when I arrived it was midafternoon, and I didn't spot anything interesting. I guess I'd have to come back in the morning sometime.

At the center of the park is a large Chinese-style shrine dedicated to the Chinese monk Tai Hong Kong, known in Thailand as Po Teck Tung. As a matter of fact, the graves at the park are still maintained by the Po Teck Tung Foundation.

Dedicated to a Song-dynasty Chinese monk famed for rescuing the poor, the sick, and the unclaimed dead, the shrine serves as a place of worship for Po Tek Tung, who is revered in Thailand as a Boddhisatva and a symbol of compassion and selfless service.

It's a beautiful and serene spot, and it's a shame that the park isn't more popular.

Even though it's located in one of the busiest parts of Bangkok, the park is always quiet and rarely has more than a handful of visitors. This is because it is widely believed to be one of the most haunted places in Bangkok.

As I made my way back to the BTS station, I passed Wat Vishnu, or the Vishnu Temple, a Hindu temple dedicated to (you guessed it!) the Hindu god Vishnu.

Wat Vishnu is the oldest Hindu temple in Bangkok. It is a northern Indian temple that is very popular with those who trace their ancestry to the Uttar Pradesh region of India where Vishnu is worshiped as the highest god in the Trimurti (the Hindu "holy trinity" consisting of Brahma the Creator, Shiva the Destroyer, and Vishnu the Preserver).

The Vishnu Temple was completed in 1920 and contains a collection of 24 beautiful marble statues brought from Jaipur.

It's always nice to discover new hidden gems in the city I've lived in for so long. Living in Bangkok never gets old, and it seems that I'm always discovering something new.