A Room With a View

 

The Dusit Thani Hotel, tallest in Bangkok
at the time with it's spire on the left side
 of the photo. The view is from our language
school window.

Our language school was on the 11^th floor near the top of the 13 floor building. At the time, no one would have either accused or credited Bangkok with having genuine skyscrapers so we had a clear view of the cityscape from out the school windows. Looking out one set of windows as in the photo, we had a nice view of the Dusit Thani Hotel. Built in 1970 with 23 floors, it was the tallest building in Bangkok and was the most distinguished landmark of our “neighborhood”.

In addition to being tall, it was also known as one of the top tier hotels in Bangkok. We never dreamed of staying there, but we did browse some of the shops on the lower floors and we even splurged on some tickets to see a Glen Campbell concert one time! It was also known that we could ride the elevator to the top floor and visit the restrooms which had a great view of all the city lights at night. The restrooms were outside the doors of the rather pricey restaurant so we could check out the view for free!

There was also a coffee shop on the ground floor that had fairly reasonable prices and fairly decent western food. Pizza Hut was the only western food chain that had arrived in Bangkok as of 1982 so it was a treat for our American born tastebuds to occasionally get a hamburger at the Dusit Thani coffeeshop. The first McDonalds wouldn’t open in Bangkok until 1985 so it was the best burger around.

But Bangkok was on the move and growing exponentially. One of the challenges of the time was to find an apartment that was not next door to a building project where massive pile drivers were pounding day and night and shaking the jelly like ground. They could be heard and felt for blocks. We were very fortunate that our apartment had only the roar of traffic but no pile drivers during our stay. For many of our missionary friends though, piles drivers were a constant part of daily life.

Why pile drivers? I’m not a building expert, but I understand Bangkok is built on top of a large swamp barely above sea level with all the ground permanently saturated and semi-liquid. There was no way to dig a foundation for even small buildings as any hole would just collapse. In fact, the Bangkok Christian Guest house had to be rebuilt because builders on the neighboring property did not do an adequate job of making a retaining wall. As a result, the soil under the Guest House shifted causing one side of the building to subside. Apparently, builders could compensate for the squishy soils by driving enough huge piles (concrete columns) into the ground. Pounding the piles deep enough would eventually provide enough friction to hold up a new building. Bigger buildings required deeper and more numerous piles.  Progress is great, but the pounding of the piles created “pounding headaches” for any neighboring residents.

Baiyoke Tower II - Tallest in Bangkok from
1997 - 2016 is also the tallest looking
building in this photo 

The taller buildings in Bangkok today are in the 1000 ft high range with over 80 floors instead of 23. The Dusit Thani building we knew in 1982 was torn down starting in 2019. It was subsequently rebuilt, but not in the original triangular shape. It is now a more standard rectangular shape but still has a gold spire in homage to the original building. The new Dusit Thani was reopened in September of 2024 but is in the shadow of taller buildings along Sathorn and Silom Rds.

For many of our later years in Thailand, until 2016, the Baiyoke Tower II at 85 floors and 1077 feet to the tip was the tallest building in the city. We would see it out the window every time we drove into Bangkok from the north. It has since been surpassed as the tallest building as the skyline of Bangkok continues to rise dramatically. A sprawling city, there is not just one central business district with tall buildings but multiple areas with genuine skyscrapers in every direction.