Sidewalks Aren't Just for Breakfast Anymore

When I think of a sidewalk, I think of a strip of pavement or stone along side a road that allows pedestrians to walk to their destination while staying out of the way of traffic. Here in Thailand, people do walk on sidewalks, but they do so much more with them. Unfortunately, the "so much more" often overshadows the primary purpose.

Sidewalks here are home to untold numbers of money making endeavors. Entrepreneurial Thai’s set up shops on the sidewalks, hawking their merchandise. Food and drink are popular offerings. Indeed, some people claim that some of the best food in the kingdom can be found at sidewalk stalls. Inexpensive consumer goods and name brand knockoffs are also offered for sale.

Some of these sidewalk industrialists block only most of the sidewalk with their shops. Others, perhaps less considerate or with a greater inventory find it necessary to block off the entire sidewalk. They might even rope off part of the sidewalk to ensure that some unsuspecting pedestrian does not mistakenly attempt to use their portion of the sidewalk as a place to walk.

One of the big reasons that you see an abundance of sidewalk shops is that it is often rent-free or inexpensive. These people are not making an enormous amount of money. The opportunity to sell goods rent free is often too good to pass up. I do believe, however, that local law enforcement sometimes collects a “fee” from unauthorized vendors.

The shops are not limited to places like downtown Bangkok. When we attended the fireworks, the sidewalk was lined with capitalists selling food, water, and other goods. Those shops were not there yesterday, and may not be there next week.

Pedestrians must not only deal with shops, but they must also compete with motorcycles for use of the sidewalk. In some places, stretches of sidewalk look like a motorcycle parking lot. I’ll write more about motorcycles at another time, but suffice it to say now that they often drive quite recklessly.

In some places, the effect of these competing forces is to push the pedestrians into the street. As you might imagine, weaving through a crowd of people while dodging cars and motorcycles with three young children is enough to raise a falang’s blood pressure.

In fairness, there are a lot of places where you can actually walk on the sidewalk. In many places the motorcycles aren’t allowed to park on it, and the shops can’t entirely block the sidewalk.