Fight to keep iconic signs on Khao San Road

Khao San Road is legendary as the backpacker hub of Thailand. It was once teeming with street vendors and bars spilling out into the streets, aggressive tuk-tuk drivers and ping-pong show advertisers. A barrage of sights and sounds and smells for fresh young backpackers to be overwhelmed by as Khao San Road stretched under snarls of metal signs hovering above the street, squeezing in markers for the hundreds of businesses lining the streets.

And Khao San has remained close to that original hot mess, despite numerous attempts in recent years to remodel and revamp, to gentrify the backpacker heaven. In the latest attempt and tidying up the neighbourhood, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is attempting to pull down all that mesh of signs above the streets of Khao San Road.

business owners…